Tommy Christopher at Mediaite has decided to wade into the “Phantom N-Word” story and do the heavy lifting of the Congressional Black Caucus, Media Matters, MSNBC and all of the networks and publications that spread the false charges of racism emanating from the health care protests in Washington DC on March 20th. After reading Tommy’s lame attempt I see now why the other apologists for the Congressional Black Caucus have stayed silent for months on this issue.
Let me answer his two main arguments immediately and then provide detailed and sourced evidence to support me answers:
1. There is corroborating evidence from three eyewitnesses who said the racial slurs occurred
WRONG: There is one witness with no corroboration. And that witness is NOT civil-rights hero Rep. John Lewis. (more below)
2. The five videos showing the moment the slurs were supposed to have taken place don’t reveal what each and every person present is saying, therefore, it does not prove the racial slurs didn’t happen.
WRONG: The videos we have provided of the incident unequivocally prove that the scene described by the one witness is a complete fabrication. Furthermore, it is not incumbent on the accused to prove something did not happen, it is incumbent on the accuser to prove that it did.
To back-up his claim that there is corroborating evidence from three respected congressmen, Tommy links to two articles: 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 Lewis.
For three eyewitness testimonies to be “corroborating” they need to support one another’s version of the events. Let’s look at each person’s testimony:
First, Rep. John Lewis has never been quoted on the record by any publication saying he heard racial slurs. Even in the one-on-one interview Ms. Tucker conducted in the AJC, Rep. Lewis himself is not quoted.
Next, Rep. Cleaver’s testimony from the day of the alleged event is:
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said he was a few yards behind Lewis and distinctly heard “nigger.”
“It was a chorus,” Cleaver said. “In a way, I feel sorry for those people who are doing this nasty stuff – they’re being whipped up. I decided I wouldn’t be angry with any of them.”
Cleaver’s office said later in a statement that he’d also been spat upon and that Capitol Police had arrested his assailant. The statement praised the police, who Cleaver said escorted the members of Congress into the Capitol past the demonstrators.
The problem with Rep. Cleaver’s compelling statement and testimony is that he was no where near Rep. Lewis as he walked to the Capitol that day. Video evidence proves that fact. Watch:
[youtube 7dto5e2ji3A]
Now that Rep. Lewis and Rep. Cleaver are eliminated as corroborating witnesses, Tommy is left with one man: Rep Andre Carson.
Rep. Carson inherited the seat his grandmother used to occupy and he has failed to denounce the anti-Semitic ramblings of Louis Farrakhan, the man who eulogized his grandmother at her funeral.
Now, let’s listen to Rep. Carson’s exact description of the events that day, moments after they allegedly occurred:
[audio: http://media.washingtontimes.com/media/audio/2010/Apr/06/a_carson_intvw.mp3]Rep. Carson says of the scene:
“…kill the bill'”and then the n-word [imitates crowd yelling racial slur] Lewis, his chief of staff, and myself (a former cop) I’m closer to Lewis… [we were] very stoic, looked straight forward, and Capitol Police got the idea. They started surrounding us. It was like a page out of a time machine.
This account brings us to Tommy’s second point which is that the videos we have presented don’t prove everything everyone said therefore they can’t prove the slurs weren’t shouted. Of course, we never suggested they did, but the videos do prove a couple of things.
You can certainly see from the videos we presented that the congressmen are given a wide berth as they trot down the steps at Cannon. They are not surrounded. There are no Capitol Police intervening because there is no need for the Capitol Police. It also hardly looks like a scene that one would anticipate rocks being thrown.
On this point alone the testimony of Rep. Carson should be seen as suspect since his description of the scene is false, let alone his account of what was shouted.
But, specific to the alleged shouts of racial slurs from the individuals in the crowd, let’s again look at how Rep. Carson described the chant:
Cannon….coming out with John Lewis out of the elevator with his chief of staff, and it was just the three of us walking down the steps — ‘kill the bill’, ‘kill the bill’…n – word fifteen times.
Rep. Carson kept repeating the same thing: ‘Kill the bill, kill the bill, N-WORD” and he says he heard it fifteen times. The way Rep. Carson describes it you would think there would be a cadence where the “N-Word” slur fits right in with “Kill the Bill.” And since it is coming fifteen times, you would think that the various camera angles we have offered would pick up the shouts of the slur from the top of the steps, the bottom of the steps, the edge of the curb as the congressmen walk past and the edge of the curb when the congressmen walk into the street. But our cameras don’t pick up anything like what Rep. Carson described.
According to Tommy, if we can’t tell exactly what each person in the videos are saying, despite the fact we have offered video from so many different angles, we must believe Rep. Carson.
Speaking of those camera angles, Tommy asks why we only have 7 – 9 seconds of footage (implying we have left footage on the cutting room floor). The fact is, Tommy only grabbed footage from our latest video (in a series of seven) that we have presented over the past three months. Feel free to look at much longer versions of these videos here, here and here.
Finally, Tommy points to a man walking behind the congressmen. He calls him an “aide” and asks why he is pointing to someone in the crowd. Here’s your answer Tommy: He’s not an aide. He is Rep. John Shadegg from Arizona. And he is not pointing to someone in the crowd, he is giving a “Thumbs-down” indicating he is voting against ObamaCare. And the crowd cheers him for it. See for yourself:
[youtube FKBQvDIkFV0]
We urge our readers to read all of the links provided here, look at the videos, look at the behavior and the credibility of the accusers and make up your own minds about this issue. The New York Times has already seen fit to correct their reporting on this episode. And it seems the readers of Tommy’s column have made their opinion well heard in the comment section of his post (Jim Treacher‘s contribution is particularly entertaining).
Oh how we love Democracy.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.