President Obama wants the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to restrict employers' use of criminal background checks in hiring decisions. In the wake of the massacre of the innocents at the Washington Naval Yards does he feel differently now?

As Scott Thurm wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month:

Civil-rights activists and the EEOC say the checks can be discriminatory because blacks are convicted of crimes at higher rates than whites. Last year, the EEOC issued guidelines that don't prohibit the use of criminal checks, but urge employers to consider the crime, its relation to an applicant's potential job, and how much time has passed since the conviction.

The guidelines also recommend that employers review each case individually, and allow applicants to show why they should be hired despite a conviction.

In practice, the EEOC  has been on a rampage to pressure companies to abandon such background checks. They are used by 87 % of employers to screen workers.

The agency has so overstepped its bounds -- and the law -- that their efforts to compel obedience to their dictates has been derailed by federal judges.  But as more of them are nominated by Barack Obama, expect such fidelity to the law to suffer).

In the case of a Texas-based company, Freeman Company, Judge Titus wrote a stinging criticism of the efforts by the EEOC:

In his opinion, Judge Titus harshly criticized an outside statistician hired by the EEOC to evaluate Freeman's hiring practices, citing "a plethora of errors and analytical fallacies" that made the conclusions "completely unreliable." The statistician "cherry-picked" data and examined the wrong time period when reviewing Freeman's records, the judge said.

The defeat has not stopped the EEOC, as it has brought cases against companies such as Dollar General and a unit of BMW, the German auto company. Why spend taxpayer money to engage in blatant social engineering?

Would any journalist care to ask Jay Carney if the President feels abashed now since Aaron Alexis, the killer at the Washington Naval Yards had "brushes with the law" that included acts of violence?  After all, Barack Obama rarely puts himself at risk by holding press conferences. Apparently, he cannot handle the heat but he has a staff to take the hit (ask Susan Rice) for him. He is also heartless when it comes to the deaths of people in the military (recall his blasé approach towards announcing the Ft. Hood massacre -- I mean workplace violence incident -- and his partisan attack on Republicans right after the Washington Naval Yard attack).

Aaron Alexis gained access and carried weapons into the location because he possessed a valid military identification card he received when he was hired by the defense contractor operating at the Naval Yard .

Now his employer, The Experts, has declared the company would have never hired him had they known of his criminal background. That was a mistake on the company's part-facilitated by the military careless approval of a security clearance to Alexis.

Imagine the problems that will arise if Obama is successful in twisting the EEOC's role in the direction he wants.

But the point remains: if Obama pressures companies to end the practice of using criminal background checks how many more crimes, including murder, will follow on behalf of Obama's affirmative action agenda?

How many innocent people will pay the price for his obsession?