The strange case of conservatives calling John Lewis a liar
I just had lunch with John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman and civil rights icon, who finds himself the subject of an unlikely controversy. After Lewis and two other black Democrats reported in late March that they had been the subject of an ugly racial epithet — and worse — by tea party activists as the health care vote neared, some conservative activists struck back by alleging that the name-calling never took place.
Andrew Breitbart, the activist behind the anti-ACORN videos, repeated the allegation in a speech Friday to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. In other words, Lewis was lying. From AP:
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.”
It probably doesn’t make any difference to Brietbart that he has his facts wrong:
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.
Respectable conservatives have had the good sense not to doubt Lewis’ word. (That does not include U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who told an audience, “No witness saw it, it’s not on camera, it’s not on audio.”) Recently, Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said:
“A couple of weeks before the alleged incident occurred, I was walking across the bridge in Selma, Ala., with John Lewis,” said Pence. “I take at face value what John Lewis said. If John Lewis said he heard it, I believe he’s a man of integrity. And I would denounce those kinds of statements in the strongest possible terms.”
For his part, Lewis dismisses the aspersions on his character as “more attempts to demonize” those who disagree with the tea partiers and their supporters. And he stands by his story that the N-word was used several times.
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135 comments Add your comment
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
4:19 pm
The Duke rape case has EVERYTHING to do with this post and Lewis. Here’s the formula:
Person A (black) accuses Person B (not black) of a racially motivated activity
Person B is dragged through the mud and assumed to be guilty
Person A is eventually found to be lying
Person A has no consequences
Person B is still thought to have perpetrated of the act because a disparity in media attention is used to set the record start about Person B being innocent.
Media shows no interest in labeling Person A being a racial liar
Person A gets to accuses someone at a later time of a racial act (this happened more than once in the Duke case, yet after the first false incident no one dug deeper to see if she was again crying wolf)
randomguest
April 13th, 2010
4:21 pm
Cynthia, please kindly ask Rep. Lewis why members of his group where walking through the protests filming their “first day of spring” stroll through the Tea Party protests with their cell phones. Does not that not speak to the intent of the walk? And why haven’t we seen the video from their cell phones?
Thanks You
interesting
April 13th, 2010
4:22 pm
Jahmar, thank you for giving excuses, license, and entitlement to perpetuate racism.
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
4:23 pm
First it was “there’s no proof that it happened.” Now, it’s “even if it did happen, it was a liberal instigator,” or “it’s Pelosi’s fault because she shouldn’t have been there,” “it was another black person,” and now the most outrageous assertion to date “what if the person for Lewis and Healthcare Reform and was showing support?”
How far are you willing to walk back from this?
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
4:27 pm
@ T-Town
It could be a Latino or an Asian. Great point. It also could have been one of Lewis’ peers just steps away from him giving him a compliment. Maybe the word ended with an ‘er, maybe with an ‘a — who knows. Unlikely, but being a thorough citizen journalist, I have to ask these questions.
The only thing I can conclude is Lewis has nothing to lose and everything to gain by saying this. It deflates from the message of the Tea Party, gives him sympathy and helps bridge the idea that healthcare reform is somehow tied to civil rights. Lewis has nothing to lose in the mix. He’ll have his seat until he decides he doesn’t want to be there. No one will run against him with a serious campaign, no one will challenge him on issues that involve race.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:27 pm
Ragnar, Surely you can do better than to dig up Robert Byrd’s distant history to compare with Paladino’s current racial history.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:28 pm
Mallory, the Cambridge police did act stupidly. Skip Gates committed no crime
Mallory
April 13th, 2010
4:28 pm
This group’s entire movement is based on the premise of deception.
Outcrazying The Crazy: How A Prankster Plans To Infiltrate And Destroy The Tea Party Movement
“The lower the public opinion of them goes, the less coverage they’re going to get in the mainstream media,” Levin said when I asked him about the plan. “Then the GOP stops listening to them and they disperse and they go back to their militias and cabins in the woods.”
He emphasized that his group is non-violent, and not interested in “perpetuating racism, homophobia or misogyny.”
How can anyone take him at his word? Maybe his group was there the day the N-word flew.
Can anyone prove the accused wasn’t one of his? Nope!
Tommy Maddox
April 13th, 2010
4:31 pm
CT:
I’m saying that they were hoping to get someone in the crowd to cause a ruckus so they could have it on video. Well, that did not happen.
If someone had shouted at Lewis, chances are some of those bodyguards would have stomped the crap out of the guy.
Wahoo
April 13th, 2010
4:31 pm
Cynthia, why is it a strange case that some are calling a politician a liar?
You say: Respectable conservatives have had the good sense not to doubt Lewis’ word.
One doesn’t have to be respectable or conservative to doubt, or question the word of politicians. Many, if not all politicians are guilty of some or all of the following: downright lying, contorting facts to obscure the truth, and making promises they are in no position to keep. This tends to afflict politicians more acutely in election years.
Irrespective of their political views, what would you prefer a person, activist or politician say? You have some that have come out and said that it’s deplorable to speak to someone in such derogatory tones, and surely it is. And then you have others that question whether or not the incident even took place, which, frankly, isn’t terribly unreasonable.
Breibart is somebody with an agenda tooting his horn. There are a lot of people in and out of politics that have megaphones that stir the pot. While I consider it unfortunate that these “pot stirrers” have access to a microphone, there’s nothing strange or unusal about it. I kindly suggest you get over it.
Jahmar
April 13th, 2010
4:31 pm
@interesting
These are not excuses. This is the real world. This is how people feel. Please, if you may explain a situation in which it would be socially acceptable for a white person to say the word, because I honestly cannot think of very many.
PearlJam
April 13th, 2010
4:32 pm
Using Cynthia’s logic here is why all Democrats are women beaters. This is what people get just for wearing a Palin pin:
Friday evening outside of a $10,000-per-plate Republican fundraiser at Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans, a top fundraiser for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — along with her boyfriend — were assaulted as they walked to their vehicle parked two blocks away.
The Hayride reports that Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown were followed and attacked expressly because they had Palin pins on. The New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting Bautsch suffered a broken leg and Brown suffered a concussion, a broken jaw and a broken nose in the attack. Bautch required surgery over the weekend with an estimated 2-3 month recovery time.
All democrats are valiant and are out to destroy and try to kill anyone that supports Sarah Palin, any time your near them make sure you carry a concealed weapon to protect yourself. Especially women.
I’m just trying to reason like Cynthia
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
4:32 pm
@ Kamchak
I’m willing to look this thing square in the eye and you should too. Until evidence is produced in the sea of cameras, you have to look at all the angles. I’ll give you a new angle, it was a fart. Someone farted and it sounded like the n-word.
There were plenty of black caucus members walking next to Lewis with their video cameras ablazing that would probably love to jam it down Andrew Breitbart’s throat and make him live up to his promise of donating $100k to the Unitied Negro College Fund.
Who wins here? Lewis gets alot of media attention. Breitbart gets alot of media attention.
Who loses here? Black high school students aspiring for college that could have used the extra $100k.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:32 pm
Wahoo, I’ve known John Lewis for 30 years, and I’ve never known him to lie. He’s not provocative, not a bomb-thrower, etc
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
4:33 pm
Go one step further: a Latino…
Funny that you should mention Latino.
SPRINGBORO — Racist comments, including a slur about Hispanics, posted on the Twitter page of the Springboro Tea Party were particularly hurtful to Alana Turner.
“Illegals everywhere today! So many sp!cs makes me feel like a speck. Grrr. Wheres my gun!?” said the March 21 posting on the site managed by the group’s founder, Sonny Thomas.
Turner said the comments upset her because she and Thomas have a 6-year-old son who is part Hispanic.
“Basically, it’s like he’s saying he hates his son,” Turner said.
The Twitter posting triggered cancellations by several local and statewide candidates and elected officials scheduled to speak at a Springboro Tea Party rally scheduled for Saturday, April 17, at North Park. However, some officials say this doesn’t tarnish the Tea Party movement as a whole.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:33 pm
Tommy Maddox, This is America. Police are not supposed to “stomp the crap” out of someone over words they use
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
4:36 pm
I’m willing to look this thing square in the eye and you should too.
“Looking this square in the eye” suggests a pause. You keep walking down “What if ” Lane.
Mallory
April 13th, 2010
4:36 pm
“the Cambridge police did act stupidly.”
I would expect you to say that, Ms. Tucker.
The Cambridge police union (black and white) said Officer Crowley followed protocol.
Michael K.
April 13th, 2010
4:37 pm
@Jahmar
I’m white. I don’t think uncivil behavior is acceptable – period. However, I don’t really see any difference between the “N word” and any other racist or sexist term. Maybe you feel the “N word” is different, but I rather suspect that has a lot to do with the fact that it’s a derogatory term for people like you. I can tell you, I’m not terribly comfortable when a black guy calls me a cracker.
Actually, if you want to know the term that bothers me the most – it’s racist. I would love it, if liberals (white and black) would stop claiming that conservatives are racists. Maybe you don’t understand what that’s like (since you’re not a conservative white), but it’s quite unpleasant.
LibraryJim
April 13th, 2010
4:38 pm
CT, no, there was the report of a break in. Police came to the door and asked the person for ID, person could not produce a picture ID. Person was informed he needed to produce proof he was the legal resident or he would be taken downtown. Person begins screaming and yelling and acousting police. Police arrest person.
Proper procedure was followed. Police did not act stupidly, they did not know if person at door was pretending to be resident so accomplice could get out.
Obama did not have the facts when he made his stupid statement, and later showed his arrogance by walking ahead of them & making poor prof Gates, who is mobility challenged, try to walk down steps alone, which is when police officer assisted him.
Rita
April 13th, 2010
4:40 pm
I’m trying so hard to understand this stretch of logic that it’s making my head hurt: “please kindly ask Rep. Lewis why members of his group where walking through the protests filming their ‘first day of spring’ stroll through the Tea Party protests with their cell phones.” They are duly elected members of Congress, that’s why, just like their Republican colleagues with their cell phones who were cheered as they walked through the same crowd. If they had not walked the tea party gauntlet, the same critics here would be accusing them of cowardice for avoiding the protests. If there is one word that could never be applied to John Lewis, it is the word “coward”.
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
4:41 pm
“Mallory, the Cambridge police did act stupidly. Skip Gates committed no crime”
Ms. Tucker, I beg to differ with you. The Cambridge police were only doing their job. Let’s say the police just gave it a cameo drive by. If indeed a burglary had occurred, there would be those in the community that would charge that the police didn’t care about crime in certain areas of the community. Asking for the homeowners ID is standard and though Mr. Gates committed no crime, believing everyone would know him on site is very naive.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:41 pm
LibraryJim, There was absolutely no “accosting.” Gates never touched a police officer.
LibraryJim
April 13th, 2010
4:42 pm
“Tommy Maddox, This is America. Police are not supposed to “stomp the crap” out of someone over words they use”
No but SEIU members can beat up an old woman at a tea party, Obama supporters can bite the finger off an old man, armed Black Panthers can intimidate voters at a polling place (and go un-prosecuted), and liberals can beat up two peaceful citizens for wearing Palin pins. So I wouldn’t be surprised if bodyguards would have done the actions Tommy suggested if the incident had happened.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:44 pm
LibraryJim, I don’t confuse the Capitol police with civilians. And the Black Panthers? Are you and I in the same century?
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
4:45 pm
T-Town, I’m not sure that you and I differ. What crime did Gates commit?
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
4:47 pm
Ms. Tucker, How did the police at stupidly? By asking for an ID?
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
4:48 pm
Act not at
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
4:49 pm
Enter your comments here
Mallory
April 13th, 2010
4:50 pm
Ms. Tucker your bias is so blatantly obvious, and yet you wear it with pride. Your insistence vs my resistance. It’s as simple as that.
Good day.
Reality Check
April 13th, 2010
4:51 pm
I actually heard the word on a video on youtube. So don’t even try to deny it. It occurs about 10 seconds in. While some are yelling kill the bill there were some yelling that word as well. This is just more of the same garbage we’ve heard from these creeps over the years. They just don’t want to face the reality that their “movement” is nothing more than a gathering of bigots…
LibraryJim
April 13th, 2010
4:52 pm
CT, yes, Black Panthers. From the Wall Street Journal, August 20, 2009:
President Obama’s Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.
The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen”—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.)
One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at the entrance and pointed it at voters and both made racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell “You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!”
In the first week of January, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In March, Mr. Bull submitted an affidavit at Justice’s request to support its lawsuit.
You can read the rest of the article here:
http://bit.ly/v7fbG
jo
April 13th, 2010
4:54 pm
There is a video that show Mr. Lewis being spat upon and screamed at. It was shown on the MSNBC, but since it wasn’t on Fox I guess it didn’t happen happen. You can’t hear what they are shouting, but from the looks on all faces it wasn’t a pleasant exchange. How can all the racial and Nazi stuff be denied, most of the signs carried were of that nature. There are e mails, faxes, and phone calls. But it just like the conservatives they lie about most everything. It doesn’t matter how much proof there is deny it, or it was a plant. It is really sad the behavior of so called Christians, that is not Christ like at all. The GOP has embraced it, they own it. We can’t convince them of anything, so all we can do is expose them.
lovelyliz
April 13th, 2010
4:56 pm
Reality Check that’s relaity which is something tea bagger and neo-cons who watch nothing other than Fox News don’t grasp.
Taitz
April 13th, 2010
4:58 pm
What’s funny is that Breitbart can’t/won’t live up to his own “standards” of proof.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Stewart_Fox_GOP_confuse_tyranny_with_0408.html
“One last thing I’d like to say: my children go to a public school in Westwood in Los Angeles. And since Barack Obama is the president, they no longer call it St. Patrick’s Day. They’re calling it Potato Day. This political correctness is dangerous; it’s the destruction of language.”
Breitbart told this story on Hannity’s show to show that under Obama, the “tyranny” “political correctness” has gone crazy.
He’s never provided any video of this, no photos, no school documents,etc, no evidence that the “Potato Day” story has any kernel of truth. But John Lewis is a liar?
lovelyliz
April 13th, 2010
4:59 pm
But they’ll believe a heavily doctored and edited video that makes it look like ACORN is catering to a pimp & prostitute out of some 1970’s time warp.
LibraryJim
April 13th, 2010
5:00 pm
My comment is waiting moderation, but an article in the Wall Street Journal 08/20/09 shows that yes, the Black Panthers, dressed in para-military garb, wielding nightsticks were intimidating voters outside a polling location in Philadelphia.
Look it up, it’s there. and it’s also on YouTube.
LibraryJim
April 13th, 2010
5:00 pm
Google: black panther voter intimidation
DRH
April 13th, 2010
5:01 pm
Wait… if it “really” happened the day before… why did it take a **month** for us to hear about this discrepancy? Something just doesn’t add up here.
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:02 pm
@ Kamchak
K. So you pulled a Latino racist example of a Tea Party person. While I appreciate you documenting it (most blog folks offer opinion, but few facts), I don’t think that will take much more work to pull others. I was giving Cynthia a lay up on a NY Tea Party organization having racist emails. There’s going to be emails that you can view in this light and other negative lights. There is not centralized group organization.
Because the organization is so decentralized there isn’t a defined target to focus on.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:04 pm
Mallory, This is an opinion blog. I’m not try to hide my opinions.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:05 pm
T-Town, Police acting stupidly by arresting Skip Gates
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:05 pm
Are there racists in the Tea Party, yes. There are even more people that prejudge others, or act as bigots privately or publically. That said, the Tea Party is about being fiscally conservative. If you’re fiscally conservative, then you’ll have the Tea Party support regardless of political standing, gender, or skin color.
A more serious question perhaps is why wouldn’t Tea Party folks be prejudice? By definition it would be a sign of ignorance to not pre judge blacks, especially considering that 95% of the 2008 black presidential voters voted Obama.
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:10 pm
@ Taitz, you’re referencing Breitbart is a liar on the basis of a John Stewart, ie and entertainer article?
Granted, I know there’s a book titled How the Irish Became White, but to compare St. Patricks Day to dropping an n-bomb?
Breitbart isn’t being questioned here. He’s the evil white dude that wants to give the United Negro College Fund $100k, he’s not the person being called a liar. What would make your story great is if Lewis ran with your story about Potato Day and put a few thousand on the line to benefit an Irish organization for proof Breitbart lied.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:11 pm
DeKalb Conservative, Al Gore received 90 percent of the black vote, and last time I checked, he’s white
Jahmar
April 13th, 2010
5:11 pm
@Michael K.
I completely understand you. I personally cannot stand when the media throws the word racist around when most of the time that is just not the case. Though I do believe the majority of white racist are on the right, stereotyping the whole group is not only unfair, it’s illogical. I had two conservative white H.S. teachers at Dekalb(why a yt racist wud teach there, idk). I was grateful for both of them. One reminded me of Bill Oreilly even. I didn’t agree with him idealogically, but he was still a man I could look up to and respect.
Tommy Maddox
April 13th, 2010
5:13 pm
I was not speaking of the Police, just the other usual cast of characters. But yes, if someone had been spat upon, heads would have rolled and we would have had it all on Jesse Jr.’s video camera.
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
5:16 pm
Ms. Tucker, Just because you arrest someone that does not make it stupid. I am a past LE officer and have read accounts by the very officers working that night. Mr. Gates was very agitated and continued to bait the officers daring them to arrest him. As the crowd gathered to see what the commotion was all about he continued and was arrested for Disorderly Conduct. Everyone involved knew he would never be convicted because of who he was. Saying the officers were stupid for doing their job depends on what side of the fence your on.
randomguest
April 13th, 2010
5:18 pm
Cynthia, you note that “Brietbart has his facts wrong” in using the 48 second youtube clip as evidence…or lack thereof. The video does, however, demonstrate that the statement released by Rep. Cleaver’s office after the spit/spray incident was at best inflammatory..at worst, a flat out lie. This is to say nothing of the total inconsistent manner in which his office has reported on the story after the fact (arrested, not arrested, decided not press charges, could not identify the assailant, etc etc) http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/20/90772/rep-john-lewis-charges-protesters.html
This in conjunction with a total lack of evidence to substantiate these egregious claims (despite the cell phone cameras of caucus delegation and all other observers) certainly must provide you some level of understanding as to why people might doubt the authenticity of the story. No?
blutto
April 13th, 2010
5:18 pm
CT: “blutto, that’s quite a conspiracy theory”
True. But the political woods are full of “dirty tricks” carried out by both sides. Callender and Segretti became famous for their “conspiracies,” the likes of which are not uncommon. Are you saying that you’ve never heard of one party deliberately infiltrating another in order to hurl insults or make mischief that places the infiltrated group in a bad light?