Several news outlets have reported that protesters on Capitol Hill have made racist and homophobic comments at certain members of Congress. While helpful in building a portrait of the Tea Party movement, the rally itself was largely about the healthcare bill. If racism is on the minds of members at the rally, it is not what they are focusing on.
At Mother Jones, Suzy Khimm has background on the incidents in question:
Rep. John Lewis was called “the N-word” when he was on the floor of the House earlier today by “a heckler from the Tea Party, a protester,” Kristie Grecho, a press secretary for House Majority Whip James Clyburn, said this afternoon. She added that another protester allegedly tried to spit upon Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, another black Democrat, as he was walking from the Longsworth House building to attend Obama’s speech. In a separate incident today, Rep. Barney Frank, who is openly gay, was called a “fag” as he was leaving the Longsworth building.
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post also reports the comments made by Representative Cyburn, and how Clyburn feels that the comments made at him evoke the racist attitudes of the 1960’s:
“It was absolutely shocking to me,” Clyburn told the Huffington Post. “Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday… I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins… And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus.” [Emphasis added by FrumForum]
Some of the flags and paraphernalia at the rally do lend credence to the impression that several of the attendees have sympathies that would be out of step with the mainstream. While no Confederate flags were cited, both the Bonnie Blue Flag and a South Carolinian secessionist flag were identified:
However, the mood of the entire event was confrontational. This video below shows Maxine Waters and an additional congressman (from the distance, it is hard to identify who) being booed for their support of the healthcare bill. Whether the fact they are African-American makes the booing easier is hard to know, people at the rally booed anyone who supported the bill irrespective of their skin color:
The main goal of the rally was not to target representatives based on their skin color or sexual orientation, it was to get vulnerable and targeted House members to change their votes. At the rally, speakers would give out the number for Rep. Jason Altmire’s office, and would encourage everyone on the lawn to go to his office. (While FrumForum has not yet found a third party estimate on how large the crowd was today, Freedom Works claimed there were around 40,000 people.)
As a result of this, Altmire’s office had one of the longer lines inside the Congressional office buildings:
The most recent reports suggest that Altmire’s vote is a confirmed no. Whether Tea Party pressure had a role in this decision is currently unclear, but it is certainly an example of a Tea Party target switching his vote in a way that they would prefer.
Several members of media have chosen to focus in on the racism and homophobia of the Tea Party:
There is no defense for the actions they describe. Whether individuals at the rally consider their opinions on race and sexuality to be more important than their opinions of the piece of legislation being discussed however, is a separate issue.
Brain Beutler of TPM argues that these incidents reveal conservative hypocrisy:
The general point of the tweet is valid: the Tea Party does attract members with distasteful opinions. The problem for liberals trying to explain why these people are protesting is that these opinions may not necessarily be driving the entire Tea Party movement. The problem for the GOP is that even though the focus of the Tea Party is healthcare, the movement has thrown its lot in with a segment of America with opinions that are utterly alien to college-educated and independent minded voters. Very few people outside these rallies think that “states’ rights” is a convincing rallying cry for conservative programs.
agentprovocateur // Mar 21, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Multiple Personalities from Michigan is projecting, yet again. First, balconesfault and I are supposedly the same person. Now, ottovbvs has supposedly used another alias too? Glass houses, Independent, er, GOProud, er, MI-GOPer, glass houses.
S.L. Toddard // Mar 21, 2010 at 9:36 pm
“Identifying that a sizeable segment of these folks are racists, homophobes and nuts of various types exercising their 1st Amendment rights is thought policing?”
That is as well, of course. The Left (traditional liberals and neoconservatives alike) scaling back the federal government and a return to constitutional republican government, and as such seeks to smear those who are ostensibly trying to effect change in that direction by using the traditional tactics of the Left in an attempt render the Tea Partiers radioactive: proclaiming them guilty of some charge of Crimethink or other and subjecting them to a Two Minutes Hate. The views on race/gays/etc of the protesters are entirely irrelevant with regards to whether their goal is legitimate, of course, and the ‘racist’ smear is simply an underhanded means of stifling debate and extinguishing any opposition to the expansion of the state. But I was referring to the author’s implication that having “sympathies that would be out of step with the mainstream” makes one suspect. The author is clearly uncomfortable that there remain Americans – ethnic Americans (meaning those whose ethnicity is “American”) – who are not yet ashamed of their American ancestors and history, and who have not yet learned to mindlessly regurgitate the Left’s narrative of social progress and egalitarianism. I must say I am baffled that he is so concerned – it seems rather a foregone conclusion that the Left has won. The sons of these few remaining conservatives – these few, last Americans – will learn to hate their patrimony, and loathe their history, culture and people, and will join the neoconservative and liberal Left in demanding that they themselves be displaced and dispossessed of their own country in favor of non-Westerners.
S.L. Toddard // Mar 21, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I’m sorry – that should read “The Left (traditional liberals and neoconservatives alike) *opposes* scaling back the federal government and a return to constitutional republican government… etc”
ottovbvs // Mar 21, 2010 at 9:50 pm
“and will join the neoconservative and liberal Left in demanding that they themselves be displaced and dispossessed of their own country in favor of non-Westerners.”
…..Is it time to call Bellevue?
grackle // Mar 22, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Several news outlets have reported that protesters on Capitol Hill have made racist and homophobic comments at certain members of Congress.
And we are supposed to believe this because “… several news outlets have reported … ” it? Is this author so entirely gullible that he believes everything the MSM says? Why, the author would probably have believed Scott Beauchamp’s lies about our troops in Iraq when they were published by the New Republic, which were later recanted under oath by Beauchamp, which caused the New Republic to enter into a very embarrassing series of equivocations and further lies in order to justify the New Republic’s publishing of Beauchamp’s lies in the first place.
http://tinyurl.com/2rlsj5
Oops! I guess we shouldn’t be TOO surprised. In the author’s bio we see this:
Noah Kristula-Green was formerly a Web Intern at The New Republic. He lives in Washington DC, grew up in Tokyo, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in political science from The University of Chicago.
Anyone who has been exposed to the anti-conservative bias of the typical political science department of a major liberal university and later worked at the New Republic would be only too happy to believe anything bad about the Tea Party that the MSM might dish out.
While helpful in building a portrait of the Tea Party movement, the rally itself was largely about the healthcare bill. If racism is on the minds of members at the rally, it is not what they are focusing on.
Slick. Put “Tea Party Racists” in the headline and then bury a cya in the body of the article by kind of but not really attempting to say the opposite. It’s a way of condemning but later if the author’s hand is called he can always quote, “If racism is on the minds of members at the rally, it is not what they are focusing on.” Slick, and dishonest.
At Mother Jones, Suzy Khimm has background on the incidents in question:
Rep. John Lewis was called “the N-word” when he was on the floor of the House earlier today by “a heckler from the Tea Party, a protester,” Kristie Grecho, a press secretary for House Majority Whip James Clyburn, said this afternoon. She added that another protester allegedly tried to spit upon Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, another black Democrat, as he was walking from the Longsworth House building to attend Obama’s speech. In a separate incident today, Rep. Barney Frank, who is openly gay, was called a “fag” as he was leaving the Longsworth building.
Sam Stein of the Huffington Post also reports the comments made by Representative Cyburn, and how Clyburn feels that the comments made at him evoke the racist attitudes of the 1960’s:
“It was absolutely shocking to me,” Clyburn told the Huffington Post. “Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday… I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins… And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus.”
Another disingenuous tactic by equivocating writers: Quote the lies of other sources instead of sticking to verifiable facts. That way you can help scurrilous untruths go viral. If you are attacked for spreading lies you can always fall back on, “Hey, I was just reporting on a controversy!”
Jim Treacher at the DC Trawler puts it this way:
Did you know that protesters at the Capitol were chanting the n-word at civil rights hero and Georgia Representative John Lewis? That’s the story, anyway. So far there’s no audio or video of the event, which seems kind of weird considering this is 2010. And the video clips we do have of Lewis confronting the protesters don’t pick up any racial epithets:
Read more: http://tinyurl.com/yczpph9
The author goes on:
Some of the flags and paraphernalia at the rally do lend credence to the impression that several of the attendees have sympathies that would be out of step with the mainstream. While no Confederate flags were cited, both the Bonnie Blue Flag and a South Carolinian secessionist flag were identified:
Ooh. WOW. CALL OUT THE TROOPS! Why? Because a “Bonnie Blue Flag and a South Carolinian secessionist flag were identified.”
However, the mood of the entire event was confrontational. This video below shows Maxine Waters and an additional congressman (from the distance, it is hard to identify who) being booed for their support of the healthcare bill.
You mean a huge crowd of PROTESTORS were “confrontational”? HOW DARE THEY! Everybody KNOWS that protestors are suppose to fling rose petals in the paths of those folks they are protesting while simultaneously blowing kisses in their direction.
Whether the fact they are African-American makes the booing easier is hard to know, people at the rally booed anyone who supported the bill irrespective of their skin color: The main goal of the rally was not to target representatives based on their skin color or sexual orientation, it was to get vulnerable and targeted House members to change their votes.
Some very slick language here. The writer, who has evidently learned his University of Chicago Political Science Department and New Republic lessons well, manages to firmly plant the spectre of racism into the minds of the readers without a shred of evidence.
What many slant-loving writers do is take the normal, mundane and commonplace (protests are confrontational) and elevate it to undeserved significance. Of course protests are confrontational, otherwise they would be called ‘lovefests.’
At the rally, speakers would give out the number for Rep. Jason Altmire’s office, and would encourage everyone on the lawn to go to his office. (While FrumForum has not yet found a third party estimate on how large the crowd was today, Freedom Works claimed there were around 40,000 people.) As a result of this, Altmire’s office had one of the longer lines inside the Congressional office buildings: There is no defense for the actions they describe.
Good heavens! We must never inconvenience our elected representatives by so graphically registering our dislike of their behavior. Those terrible Tea Partiers actually caused LONG LINES and some them probably even CALLED HIM ON THE PHONE. I mean that LONG LINE and those PHONE CALLS may cause Altmire to have nightmares for the rest of his life – the well known phenomenon of PTTPSD(post-traumatic Tea Party stress disorder).
Whether individuals at the rally consider their opinions on race and sexuality to be more important than their opinions of the piece of legislation being discussed however, is a separate issue.
Here again, the race card is cleverly worked into the narrative. After this the author quotes the tweet of another Progressive blog contributor …
Brain Beutler of TPM argues that these incidents reveal conservative hypocrisy
And then proceeds to defend the tweet and decides to get down and dirty himself:
The general point of the tweet is valid: the Tea Party does attract members with distasteful opinions.
And just what are these “distasteful opinions”? We don’t know because the author never tells us.
The problem for liberals trying to explain why these people are protesting is that these opinions may not necessarily be driving the entire Tea Party movement.
Here we go with the phantom “opinions” again. And this time the author uses the device of saying these unnamed “opinions” may not necessarily be driving the entire Tea Party movement,” sort of like saying someone “may not necessarily be” beating their wife.
The problem for the GOP is that even though the focus of the Tea Party is healthcare, the movement has thrown its lot in with a segment of America with opinions that are utterly alien to college-educated and independent minded voters. Very few people outside these rallies think that “states’ rights” is a convincing rallying cry for conservative programs.
The usual doublespeak of the Left. By implication the Tea Partiers are not “college-educated” or “independent minded.”
The author doesn’t argue Tea Party principles on merit but just practices the usual ad hominem tactics by labeling them as “distasteful.” It promotes an obfuscation(one of several) by claiming the Tea Party’s “focus” is “healthcare,” when the ObamaCare abomination is only a part of the Tea Party’s “focus,” which is more properly called “limited government.”
But the author can always say, wide-eyed with feigned innocence, that, “Hey, I was only reporting what someone else said,” a favorite device of journalists who practice ad hominem by proxy and character assassination by innuendo and implication.
Independent // Mar 22, 2010 at 5:15 pm
grackle: “But the author (Noah) can always say, wide-eyed with feigned innocence, that, “Hey, I was only reporting what someone else said,” a favorite device of journalists who practice ad hominem by proxy and character assassination by innuendo and implication.”
Welcome, grackle, to a point in time where we discover what links most of FF’s diarists with the FFbot farLeft trolls… you nailed it.
It’s a shame that it’ll take DavidF another 4 yrs, three or four more books and a lot of meaningless words published at CNN, MSNBC, MoveOn and HuffPo before the rest of the world realizes it as well. Noah is just a younger version of the WhackeyDavid of 2Davids fame.
Rob_654 // Mar 22, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Where were these “Tea Party” folks during the years of spending and unfunded programs and wars under the Bush Administration?
Now, I am not saying that there is any racism here – but – given the signs they carry – I find it interesting that they were no where to be found until a black guy became President…
scoobydubious // Mar 22, 2010 at 7:54 pm
So Freedom Works “claims 40,000″?
Yeah, right. Freedom Works claims a LOT of things that aren’t true.
Didn’t they claim 2 million on the Mall when the park service said 30-40k?
PLEASE….
grackle // Mar 22, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Where were these “Tea Party” folks during the years of spending and un-funded programs and wars under the Bush Administration?
Why I suppose many of them were exactly where I was – firmly behind the popular conservative-driven PorkBusters Movement. I suppose the commentor forgot this movement to limit spending by Bush and the GOP-dominated Congress – it’s amazing how convenient memory(or lack of it) can be. Of course the Lefty blogs did not have much to say about the PorkBusters Movement back then and if the Lefty blogs were where the commentor got his slant on things during the Bush years(ya think?) it’s understandable why he is clueless now.
But Glenn Reynolds says it better than I could:
I was talking to a reporter about the Tea Party movement yesterday, and he asked why nobody was complaining about spending under Republicans. Well, I remarked, there was the whole PorkBusters movement, whose biggest target was probably Trent “I’m damned tired of Porkbusters” Lott. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I had forgotten about that.”
Read more at http://tinyurl.com/y95vrq8
Now, I am not saying that there is any racism here – but – given the signs they carry – I find it interesting that they were no where to be found until a black guy became President…
It’s kind of a interesting thing when someone offers an opinion while at the same time denying they are giving an opinion. Sort of ike watching a side-show sharpie performing the old shell game. The commentor does not say what signs he means or provide a link to any damaging signs but is satisfied, like many of his ilk, to make vague accusations with no proof whatsoever … and we are supposed to take stuff like this serious?
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