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.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
135 comments Add your comment
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:18 pm
Jahmar — and others, Please note that my post did not use the word “racist.”
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
5:19 pm
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.
Actually I posted on this at 3:06. If you think that this from wnymedia.net is bad because it’s viewed “in this light and other negative lights,” well then, step away from talk-radio and try to think on your own.
BTW, Paladino is describe as a wealthy western New York real-estate developer, has become a darling of the Tea Party movement over the last year, and launched his campaign for governor last week after being urged to do so by Tea Party leaders.
However “decentralized” it is, the Tea party does seem to have leadership.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:27 pm
randomguest, I don’t see that that video demonstrates anything at all that has to do with Rep. Cleaver or John Lewis
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:28 pm
T-Town, There is a big difference between calling someone “stupid” and saying they behaved stupidly. And what crowd gathered?
blutto
April 13th, 2010
5:28 pm
CT: “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”
Really? Were you on vacation in 1995 when on the floor of the House of Representatives, “Read the Republican contract. They’re coming for our children. They’re coming for the poor. They’re coming for the sick, the elderly and the disabled.”
As several persons noted at the time Mr. Lewis’s words echoed a passage by Rev. Martin Niemöller, who was in the resistance against the Nazis.
Does that not seem provocative? Was it a lie? Perhaps even worthy of a “bomb-thrower”?
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:31 pm
blutto, No, I don’t think it was a lie, but you and I would probably differ on the meaning of the word. I think it was political rhetoric
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:33 pm
Since Gore (Progressive Democrat) got 90% of the black vote and Obama (Progressive Democrat) got 95% of the black vote the variable of the color of the candidates skin must be less imporant because the Democrats will essentially get the black vote by default.
The Democrats must have the greatest marketing messages that attracts the black vote. Odd because there is so much diversity in segmenting blacks from a marketing standpoint, yet the common trait that holds them together other than skin color is voting.
blutto
April 13th, 2010
5:34 pm
CT: “… you and I would probably differ on the meaning of the word.”
That was uncalled for. Either you believe that Mr. Lewis was honest in claiming that the GOP was “coming for the children, etc., or you do not. In any event, my thinking that he was being disingenuous at best did not merit the insult.
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
5:36 pm
Ms. Tucker, I have no idea what crowd was forming, the officers mentioned a crowd which I could image as anything over 1 person (to me that doesn’t make it a crowd, but). Still, acting stupidly could also be associated with Mr. Gates.
Taitz
April 13th, 2010
5:37 pm
DeKalb Conservative wrote:
“@ 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?”
No, I’m saying Breitbart is a hypocrite because he wants his political opponents to have video proof that this happened to John Lewis. But he offered no proof to back-up his “potato day” story. Here’s the full transcript of Breitbart’s “potato day” interview:
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007214&docId=l:946255408&isRss=true
Jon Stewart didn’t make up “potato day”, Breitbart said it on Sean Hannity’s show but had no proof that it happened.
So the question remains, why does Breitbart require proof of others but has yet (a year later) shown any proof that “potato day” happened? It’s a fair question that Breitbart hasn’t answered.
randomguest
April 13th, 2010
5:39 pm
Cynthia, my mistake…there are two primary videos. This one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCs6pSE8_I&feature=player_embedded
And this one, showing the Cleaver incident (at about 1:20):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SCs6pSE8_I&feature=player_embedded
I find it strange that the AP writer would focus on just the first video considering the existence of the second is well documented.
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:40 pm
@ Kamchak
I’m enjoying this exchange. You’re well researched. The fact is the Tea Party movement is a national platform with local infrastructure. Heck they can’t even agree enough to host a national convention. Paladino has little meaning to a person in a neighboring area. On a local school level, it would be like one PTA group awaiting another PTA group’s leadership via a “Paladino-like” person.
The Tea Party movement won’t be won on the national stage. For the most part it’ll vote Republican, with some suburban and rural areas receiving Democrat and Independent votes. The Tea Party efforts will be won on the local level, in local government where amateur politicians and aspiring politicians stand a chance to do immediate damage. Think school committees, city council, city planners, etc.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:42 pm
T-Town, I completely agree that Skip Gates behaved stupidly. Happily, that’s not a crime. The prisons couldn’t hold everybody who’d be locked up if that were the case
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:44 pm
blutto, I believe the word lie has a specific meaning — applied to a verifiable fact, ie it’s either raining outside or it’s not. Whether or not the Republicans were ‘coming for the poor,”spoken on the floor of the House, is political rhetoric, which you and I know is not subject to the same standard. Is Obama a socialist? I don’t think so, but I’d never call someone a “liar” for saying so.
neo-Carlinist
April 13th, 2010
5:44 pm
CT, I beg to disagree with your comments to Peadawg and I feel uncomfortable NOT using “the word”. Interestingly enough, my 5th grader is reading a novel about the civil rights movement in the 60’s. The plot centers around the culture shock experienced by a teen-age girl when her parents move the family to Mississippi to help with voter registration. She is called a “n$%#@* lover” by her classmates because she with black girls during lunch and walks home from school with black girls. We read a lot in this house and when my child came across the word, she hesistated, as if it were a “bad word”. It hit me that the word says far more about the people who use it (black and white). I tell my child there are no bad words, only inappropriate times to use certain words. We can find ourselves in a weird area should we alone assume to speak for the motives or context when considering the language of others. The word only has power because there are some who find it “offensive” or “racist”. And again, who among us gets to set the “context” barometer or “offensive” barometer in terms of the speech of others. I told my child it is actually an important word in American history, because it illustrates the ignornance of the segregationalists. It is an important word because in my opinion, it says more about those who use it in anger, than those who are on the receiving end of its use. Ergo, if some moron called John Lewis a “n&%#$@”, who cares? I am sure he has endured far worse. I have a good friend who was a friend of Dr. King and very active in the civil rights movement, and he once told me of the time he (white) was called a n#@*^$. Even in the midst of that madness, Dr. King et al found the incident more humorous than “offensive”. In many ways this speaks to the very essence of “free speech”. Does any among us think he/she can truly control the feelings (or ignorance) of others? Do we really think our being offended by the speech of others will lead them to chnage their ways. We need to ignore these people, not give them 15 minutes. Likewise, we need to refrain from labeling those with whom they do no share similar political views as “racists”. In many ways “the R word” is just as ignorant.
T-Town
April 13th, 2010
5:45 pm
Ms. Tucker, I also agree. God (or whomever you pray to if you do) loves stupid people. He made so many of them.
ctucker
April 13th, 2010
5:48 pm
neo-Carlinist, A couple of years ago, I wrote a column about the use of the N-word. It begins this way:
Only one thing is certain about use of the n-word, a lasting truth that was uttered by the courageous Atticus Finch, hero of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” his daughter Scout asks him. Finch answers with a pearl of wisdom:
“Of course I do. Don’t say ‘nigger, ‘ Scout. That’s common.”
Finch’s words — actually, the words are those of my hometown heroine, Harper Lee, who wrote the book in the late 1950s — retain a simple profundity. All you can know for certain about those who use that epithet is that they are a little too comfortable with crudeness. How could it be otherwise, when the term is used by racists to demean and by black rappers and comedians to entertain?
if you like, you can read the entire column here: https://ssl1.coxnews.com/scripts/,DanaInfo=sccdb.coxnews.net+sccmgcgi.dll
Noah
April 13th, 2010
5:51 pm
The real shame of all this is the descent of John Lewis from authentic hero in the non-violent movement to have equal treatment of all Americans under the law to pawn used by partisan hacks to wrap their schemes in a mantle of nobility. Lewis’ slide into minion status was complete when he participated in the robo-call that smeared Lee Morris a few years ago. Participating recently with race-baiters in hopes of inciting conflict is pure Alinsky and has nothing in common with the movement led by Dr. King. I don’t know if you know your Bible, Ms. Tucker, but an objective biography of John Lewis’ public career might be titled, “John Lewis: From Paul to Saul in 40 Years.” Given your consistency over the past 30 years as an editorialist, we can write your review now and submit it whenever such a book would appear in print.
blutto
April 13th, 2010
5:52 pm
CT — Fair enough, although “lie” was not my point nor did I write that Mr. Lewis lied. I merely asked a question. Here are two more:
Would you concede that the “political rhetoric” Mr. Lewis used, borrowed as it was from words used to describe the Nazis, was “provocative”?
Is it okay–by being “political rhetoric”–to smear those on the right with images of Naziism or those on the left with images of Communism?
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
5:56 pm
@ Taitz
Real simple, different standards. I hold Lewis (elected official) to a much higher level than Breitbart (media entrepreneur). Breitbart cannot vote to confiscate wealth, Lewis can. Breitbart cannot decided whether or not to authorize U.S. troops into going into war, Lewis can.
Most of all, there wasn’t 400 years of potato enslavement that made the word “Potato Day” known as “P-t-to Day” or as “the p-word.”
Moderate Line
April 13th, 2010
5:57 pm
No offense to John Lewis but politicians both left and right have creditability issues.
Statements like the following don’t exactly give John Lewis creditability when it comes to using racially charge language to motivate the left.
“Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.”
Bush lost creditabilty and I don’t think Obama has much creditability. Politicians say things not because they are true but because they are trying to achieve a certain politcal goal.
Michael
April 13th, 2010
5:58 pm
Maybe Fox News should show the world the unedited clips from the ACORN video that show it to be a sham. Considering that, it wouldn’t be beyond Breitbart or anybody like him to edit out audio from a video.
I’m also not dumb enough to think any group I am with doesn’t have one person who would shout out something like that. I mean Michele Bachmann thinks CO2 isn’t harmful because it’s natural. You know, kinda like that natural methane in coal mines.
DeKalb Conservative
April 13th, 2010
6:03 pm
@ Michael
CO2 isn’t harmful. You exhale it and plants need it to create oxygen, which you need to breathe. It has nothing to do with methane.
Your homework assignment for tonight: The unedited ACORN tapes are out there. They tend to be 15 minutes long and very boring.
BADA BING
April 13th, 2010
6:05 pm
Maybe no one called him the N word. Maybe someone was playing some Gangsta rap on a boombox.
neo-Carlinist
April 13th, 2010
6:09 pm
my point exactly. we’re powerless to prevent others from acting “crude” or racist? expecting ignorant morons to refrain from using the word is about as likely as expecting Larry Flynt to stop publishing vulgar, pornographic garbage. it’s as basic as “sticks and stones” and I think the sooner we de-weopnize the word, sooner there is one less stick in the hands of the ignorant. and if Harper Lee or Richard Pryor can/could use the word to demonstrate the ignorance of those who are “comfortable” using it as an epithet, we (the civilized world) need to use their ignorance to OUR advantage, not theirs.
BADA BING
April 13th, 2010
6:13 pm
Maybe John had his iPod on and he was listening to an old Eddie Murphy tape, or a Richard Prior CD, or a Chris Rock CD, or a Dave Chappele CD. Maybe he and Jesse were in Hiemie town.
Mallory
April 13th, 2010
6:21 pm
Ms. Tucker said: This is an opinion blog. I’m not try to hide my opinions.
I’ll take that as an admission of your bias. On that we can agree.
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
6:22 pm
And while we may not have a George Washington to lead us in open defiance, we can all take Francis Marion as our example and, as part of the Militia, launch a thousand guerrilla attacks on the plans that these people have to ruin us and our country.
Dangerous rhetoric.
Kamchak
April 13th, 2010
6:24 pm
Oops.
James
April 13th, 2010
6:51 pm
Not being a tea partier I still laugh at this little dribble of a blog. I just had lunch with…. The tea partiers are “stung”. In reading the NY Times and other pieces I think folks are simply wanting proof of what appears to be a be a little mix of made up (I want use the term lying) and maybe a little I did hear- nevertheless I presume I, being middle road, could say the the left wingers are showing up and military funerals to intimidate the mourners. I have been called every name in the book but don’t seek pity or a pound of flesh- Cynthia, you and Congressman Lewis hold yourself out to be leaders- how about doing such?
Really, truly eager to believe – Pure Poison
April 13th, 2010
7:51 pm
[...] and staffers. Some conservative bloggers, most notably Andrew Breitbart, have decided that the absence of recorded evidence means they are lying — and it looks like Bolt has joined in. Fine. But the homophobic epithets directed at Barney [...]
» Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher’s Failed Defense of the ‘N-Word’ Lie Dismantled - Big Government
August 10th, 2010
7:28 pm
[...] The original report from McClatchy that started the “N-word” story in the first place and a subsequent piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Cynthia Tucker where she discusses the matter with Rep. John [...]
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher’s Failed Defense of the ‘N-Word’ Lie Dismantled « South Capitol Street
August 10th, 2010
8:23 pm
[...] The original report from McClatchy that started the “N-word” story in the first place and a subsequent piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Cynthia Tucker where she discusses the matter with Rep. John [...]
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher’s Failed Defense of the ‘N-Word’ Lie Dismantled | Conservative Political News & Updates
August 10th, 2010
11:00 pm
[...] The original report from McClatchy that started the “N-word” story in the first place and a subsequent piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Cynthia Tucker where she discusses the matter with Rep. John [...]
Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher’s Failed Defense of the ‘N-Word’ Lie Dismantled - Big Journalism
August 11th, 2010
11:35 am
[...] The original report from McClatchy that started the “N-word” story in the first place and a subsequent piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Cynthia Tucker where she discusses the matter with Rep. John [...]