Reading the hyperbolic reactions from the usual suspects on the left to the Supreme Court decision on the voting rights act yesterday, you would think Jim Crow is making a comeback.

Are lunch counters to be resegregated?

Is the poll tax going to be reimposed?

Are blacks to be forced to walk on the other side of the street than whites?

Is it the "end of civil rights" in America?

Here's a sampling of headlines:

"An Assault on the Voting Rights Act" - New York Times editorial

"On Voting Rights, A Decision As Lamentable as Plessy or Dred Scott" - Atlantic Online

"Rep. John Lewis: Supreme Court put a 'dagger' in Voting Rights Act" - CNN

"Goodbye to the Crown Jewel of the Civil Rights Movement" - Slate

"Al Sharpton: The Supreme Court 'Just Cancelled The Dream' Of MLK Jr. In Voting Rights Decision" - Mediaite

Here's the bottom line; the federal government can still put its foot on the neck of entire states or localities if the new formula to determine discrimination in election law that the Supreme Court ordered Congress to come up with says it can. In fact, it doesn't even mean that voter ID laws, if not drawn very carefully, will be given a free pass.

Jonathan Tobin writing in Commentary got it just about right:

The high court not only reaffirmed the validity of the act but also even left in place Section 5, which created a mechanism that would require pre-clearance by the federal government of any changes in voting procedures in states and localities that were deemed by Congress to be habitual violators of the right to vote. But what it did do was to declare the existing formula stated in Section 4 to be the places where such scrutiny would be carried out to be unconstitutional. The reason for this is so obvious that it barely deserves to be argued: the Jim Crow south that Congress put under the federal microscope five decades ago isn't the same place today. If there is to be a formula that would require some places to get the government's prior permission to do anything that affects voting, it should be one based on the current situation, not one crafted to deal with the problems faced by Americans during the Lyndon Johnson administration.

And to that I say "duh."

Even if the feds are forced to remove the gun to the head of some or most states, one might ask, "Is there a sign on the courthouse door that says 'no coloreds allowed'"? If minorities feel that a particular law is unjust or discriminatory, it's not like they can't go to court like any other American and challenge it.

The Voting Rights Act has performed the way it was intended. Southern states never would have reformed their election laws and procedures on their own. But liberals have to wake up. It's been nearly 50 years and while no one is saying that discrimination and racism are a thing of the past, the kind of institutionalized racism that the law was intended to address is gone. No one blinks an eye when residents of Birmingham elect a black mayor, William Bell, who apponts a black chief of police. In Birmingham? How is that possible?

The Voting Rights Act made it possible.