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Pushing back on the Trayvon pushback

You knew this day was coming -- the day that the right-wing media pushed back on the Trayvon Martin case, attempting to create a marijuana cloud of doubt about both the 17-year-old and his actions on the night that he was killed.

I was tied up with other things, so I'm happy to outsource this case to my e-friend Joan Walsh:

Whether or not Martin was wearing a hoodie, or had ever used marijuana; whether or not he and Zimmerman had an altercation that night: at minimum, the cops botched this investigation, and didn't do anything like what should have been required in a case when an unarmed 17-year-old shows up dead. That's the bottom line here. Trayvon Martin didn't have to be a polo-and-khakis-wearing Boy Scout to have his rights respected. Did some of his family's defenders go too far in depicting him as a fresh-faced child, as some on the right allege? We don't know that. We only know that the family and their many supporters have cobbled together a movement to demand justice, and they've used the facts they had at their disposal. Had the cops done their job, they wouldn't have had to.

A great piece -- please read the whole thing. And remember what's at the heart of this case.