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Tea Party Capitol Video was Wrong Video - Racist Slurs May Still have Happened

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  • Tea Party Capitol Video was Wrong Video - Racist Slurs May Still have Happened

    By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer – Tue Apr 13, 6:23 am ET

    Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.

    What does the video show? Not much. Indeed, new interviews show that a much-viewed YouTube recording cited as evidence by conservatives was actually shot well after the time in question.

    It was March 20, near the end of the bitter health care debate, when Reps. John Lewis, Andre Carson and Emanuel Cleaver say that some demonstrators, many of them tea party activists, yelled the "N-word" as the congressmen walked from House office buildings to the Capitol.

    Stung by the charges of racism, conservatives and tea party activists insist it never happened. And one of them is offering big money if anyone can prove it did.

    With so many media and citizen cameras at the demonstration, any epithets would have been caught on tape, says Andrew Breitbart. He's the web entrepreneur who released the video of ACORN workers counseling actors posing as a pimp and prostitute, and has pledged $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund if anyone provides proof of the epithets.

    "It didn't happen," said Breitbart, who wasn't there. "This is 2010. Even a racist is media-savvy enough not to yell the N-word."

    The dispute pits the lawmakers — one of them, Lewis, is a leader and survivor of 1960s civil rights battles — against conservatives determined to counter claims of racism within the predominantly white and middle-aged tea party movement. The criticism has proven a distraction to a nascent movement pushing a unified message of fiscal conservatism and limited government.

    The issue still echoes in the media and blogosphere.

    "Listen, I was there," Carson, D-Ind., said in an interview. "In many regards I think (the challenges are) a veiled attempt to justify actions that are simply unjustifiable. I think we need to move toward a dialogue that explores why this kind of divisive and reprehensible language is still making it into our political debate."

    A fourth Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Henderson (N.C.) Times-News that he heard the slurs.

    A reconstruction of the events shows that the conservative challenges largely sprang from a mislabeled video that was shot later in the day.

    Breitbart posted two columns on his Web site saying the claims were fabricated. Both led with a 48-second YouTube video showing Lewis, Carson, other Congressional Black Caucus members and staffers leaving the Capitol. Some of the group were videotaping the booing crowd.

    Breitbart asked why the epithet was not captured by the black lawmakers' cameras, and why nobody reacted as if they had heard the slur. He also questioned whether the epithets could have been shouted by liberals planted in the crowd.

    But the 48-second video was shot as the group was leaving the Capitol — at least one hour after Lewis, D-Ga., and Carson walked to the Capitol, which is when they said the slurs were used.

    Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.

    "I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.

    Lewis declined to discuss the issue with The Associated Press. Asked whether the epithet was used, his spokeswoman said: "Yes. Congressman Lewis did hear the N-word yelled from the crowd."

    Carson described leaving the Cannon House Office Building for votes and bumping into Lewis in the elevator. They chose to walk outside to the Capitol, rather than through the underground tunnels.

    Conservatives say Democrats staged a march through a hostile crowd to instigate a reaction. Carson said there was no such plan: It was just the first day of spring.

    Soon after leaving Cannon, "I hear someone say it," said Carson, a former police officer. "You see one or two tea party people kind of look at him, and then you hear it again as we're walking. Then we walk across (Independence Avenue), and that's when it starts getting deeper."

    Carson said he heard it coming from different places in the crowd. "You heard it in spurts, in the midst of 'Kill the bill. Kill the bill.'"

    "One guy, I remember he just rattled it off several times. Then John looks at me and says, 'You know, this reminds me of a different time.'"

    Cleaver, D-Mo., was walking a distance behind Carson and Lewis. He says he heard the epithet and was spit on. Capitol police handcuffed a man after Cleaver said he was spit on, but Cleaver told reporters that he did not want to press charges. No arrests were made. The moment was captured on video; debate continues over whether it shows any spitting.

    In a separate case, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said he was called "******."

    On Fox News, Bill O'Reilly discussed the issue on four of his shows, beginning March 22. The first segment led with clips from the 48-second video and featured Dana Loesch, a radio talk-show host who accused the congressmen of fabricating their claims.

    O'Reilly said, "Just because it's not on tape doesn't mean it's fabricated." A spokeswoman said O'Reilly thinks that something happened, but is not sure exactly what.

    A few days later, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., told an audience, "No witness saw it, it's not on camera, it's not on audio."

    Only 22 seconds of video have emerged from the time in question, filmed by Lee Fang of the liberal American Progress think tank. His YouTube clip — labeled as being filmed about five minutes after the crowd rushed Lewis and Carson — has been posted by Breitbart and dozens of blogs accusing Democrats of lying.

    Fang told the AP he was standing "pretty far away" across Independence Avenue from the Cannon building when he saw the crowd erupt, so he hurried over. Fang did not hear the epithet, but he said he believes it was used. "The hatred was palpable," he said.

    Conservatives insist the absence of racial epithets on Fang's video and the 48-second clip show there was no hate.

    "If it didn't happen on YouTube," says a regretful Fang, "it didn't happen at all."
    Conservatives use wrong video to "disprove" racist incidents.
    A lot of Republicans are not racist, but a lot of racists are Republican.

  • #2
    Why are we so hung up on the possibility that a tiny handful of the thousands of protesters were ******?

    EDIT: Also, welcome back MrFun!
    If there is no sound in space, how come you can hear the lasers?
    ){ :|:& };:

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    • #3
      Whats the news, that we still have opportunistic race peddlers without proof of their claim?
      "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Patroklos View Post
        Whats the news, that we still have opportunistic race peddlers without proof of their claim?
        Indeed.
        I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
        For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Hauldren Collider View Post
          Why are we so hung up on the possibility that a tiny handful of the thousands of protesters were ******?

          EDIT: Also, welcome back MrFun!
          Don't underestimate the power of being offended.
          Which side are we on? We're on the side of the demons, Chief. We are evil men in the gardens of paradise, sent by the forces of death to spread devastation and destruction wherever we go. I'm surprised you didn't know that. --Saul Tigh

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          • #6
            Put a thousand conservatives together in a mob setting, and I'd be surprised if the N word wasn't used by at least a couple of them. But those couple shouldn't be used to paint the entire crowd. And no different then when you get a similar mob of minorities protesting. A few will always make hate comments about whites, but you can't paint the entire mob by just a few extremists. SO I don't really see any news value here.
            It's almost as if all his overconfident, absolutist assertions were spoonfed to him by a trusted website or subreddit. Sheeple
            RIP Tony Bogey & Baron O

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            • #7
              ^^ That.

              Noone is surprised that a small fraction of any group is racist/homophobe/whatever, just like a small fraction of the US (and the world). Whether or not anyone finds proof, everyone knows this. What is the point? Are we supposed to believe that racism and homophobia are part of the TP platform, and not just a characteristic of some members? Is that what this is about?

              If we can prove an Obama supporter is a communist, does that make the democratic party communist? Hell, I bet Obama has an Islamic supporter! Imagine what that might mean! Oh, what the hell, I'll take it a step further... If we could find a terrorist that voted for Obama, we would finally have proof of his terrorist ties to Iran.
              Last edited by Ecofarm; April 13, 2010, 11:01.
              Everybody knows...Democracy...One of Us Cannot be Wrong...War...Fanatics

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              • #8
                I more or less agree with what has been posted by the other commenters. The OP is nonnews.
                Last edited by Heraclitus; April 13, 2010, 16:21.
                Modern man calls walking more quickly in the same direction down the same road “change.”
                The world, in the last three hundred years, has not changed except in that sense.
                The simple suggestion of a true change scandalizes and terrifies modern man. -Nicolás Gómez Dávila

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Ecofarm View Post

                  If we can prove an Obama supporter is a communist, does that make the democratic party communist? Hell, I bet Obama has an Islamic supporter! Imagine what that might mean! Oh, what the hell, I'll take it a step further... If we could find a terrorist that voted for Obama, we would finally have proof of his terrorist ties to Iran.
                  The irony is that that was just what DD and Sprayber were saying pre-election.
                  “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
                  "Capitalism ho!"

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                  • #10
                    MrFun is back!

                    MrFun posted complete non-news!
                    "My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
                    "The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by DaShi View Post
                      The irony is that that was just what DD and Sprayber were saying pre-election.
                      Prove it.
                      "My nation is the world, and my religion is to do good." --Thomas Paine
                      "The subject of onanism is inexhaustable." --Sigmund Freud

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                      • #12
                        Oops! I have the wrong video.
                        “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.”
                        "Capitalism ho!"

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by DinoDoc View Post
                          Indeed.
                          You were the one who posted about the video as if it was the holy grail in another thread, saying that it disproved that the racist slurs happened.

                          This article I posted just shows that it was the wrong video.
                          A lot of Republicans are not racist, but a lot of racists are Republican.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by MrFun View Post
                            This article I posted just shows that it was the wrong video.
                            My point was that there's no proof of the allegation and the people making it have a reason to lie.
                            I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
                            For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              They still haven't been able to prove it was a Republican who shouted it? I wouldn't put it past the party of the plantation to pin their prejudice on other pols.

                              Has everyone forgot the clip of Reid talking about Obama not having a negro dialect?
                              Scouse Git (2) La Fayette Adam Smith Solomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
                              "Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
                              2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!

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