YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  We now have the Obama administration's official warning about the next great threat to American liberty, personal dignity, and progressive civilization.

You're right.  It's Kindle.  Rotten, miserable, gray-screened, fascist, homophobic Kindle.

I knew it all along.

Byron York in today's Washington Examiner rips bare the Obaman assault on this threat to change we can believe in.

Are you ready?  It seems that in 2009, Amazon announced a pilot program to supply a small number of students at some colleges, Princeton included, with the Kindle, to see if the electronic book-reading device was practical for college students.  With Kindle, you load software into the device, which looks like a picture frame, and read books on the screen.

Seemed like a fine idea...until the colleges got warning letters from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division telling them they were under investigation for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Thomas Perez, the division's ultra-militant new chief, proudly announced the action:

"We acted swiftly to respond to complaints we received about the use of the Amazon Kindle," Perez recently told a House committee. "We must remain vigilant to ensure that as new devices are introduced, people with disabilities are not left behind."

It seems a group called the National Federation of the Blind complained that there was no way for a non-sighted person to use Kindle.

In subsequent talks, the Justice Department demanded the universities stop distributing the Kindle; if blind students couldn't use the device, then nobody could. The Federation made the same demand in a separate lawsuit against Arizona State.

Curious.  Books are sold, as are newspapers.  Yet, unless they're in Braille, only sighted people can use them.

Some officials at the schools were puzzled. Given the speed of technological development and the reality of competition among technology companies -- Apple products were already fully text-to-speech capable -- wasn't this a problem the market would solve?

That's not Perez's way. To him, keeping the Kindle out of sighted students' hands underscored "the importance of full and equal educational opportunities for everyone."

And...

In early 2010, after most of the courses were over, the Justice Department reached agreement with the schools, and the federation settled with Arizona State. The schools denied violating the ADA but agreed that until the Kindle was fully accessible, nobody would use it.

More rational people were solving the problem.

Early on, Amazon told federation officials it would apply text-to-speech technology to the Kindle's menu and function keys. And sure enough, last week the company announced a new generation of Kindles that are fully accessible to the blind. While the Justice Department was making demands, and Perez was making speeches, the market was working.

Silly Mr. York.  This administration doesn't believe in the market.  Or invention.  Or ingenuity.  It believes in regulations.

Not all advocates for the disabled go along with such craziness.  One was quoted as being appalled by Perez's action, saying,  "It's a gross injustice to disadvantage one group, and it's bad policy that breeds resentment, not compassion."

COMMENT:  We are truly returning to the 1960s under this regressive administration.  The last time this kind of madness surfaced, it produced carloads of Republicans.  May it happen again.

August 3,  2010