Some of you may have read the article by Krissah Thompson recently in the Washington Post entitled “Some black conservatives question tea party’s inclusiveness.” The article received play on Drudge, follow-up coverage by three networks, countless leftist blog links and 409 direct article comments online. Thompson’s piece was hailed by the Post as a “must read” and Thompson as an “intrepid journalist concerned with the principle of the issue.”
Just one question- did any one even read the article? The inflammatory thesis that the Tea Parties are “non-inclusive” is based upon one interview with a Tea Party Participant from Harlem who said:
it’s become more of this rally of hate. The tea party leaders should apologize on behalf of the irresponsible comments that were made.
Naturally. So give us the evidence please. Give us one photo, one quote, one video of your supposed “hate rallies” or “irresponsible comments.” Some irresponsible comments have been shared on this site by Lloyd Marcus, but of course that would not prove the point. Luckily, I can save Ms. Thompson’s gaping credibility gap. Here is the long awaited video of “hate rallies” that do attack the president in a racist manner:
They call Thompson an “intrepid and balanced” journalist for scrounging one unsubstantiated quote. Does anyone realize Thompsons WaPo journalistic history includes articles entitled “D.C.’s High-Level Social Scene Now Mingles Black and Whites” wherein she quips:
… the all-white dinner party feels all wrong… (because)… for the first time the face of ultimate power is African American.
Following this logic, she would have to conclude that an all-black dinner party felt “wrong” during the Clinton presidency.
Thompson wrote 14 (!) Post articles about Harvard professor Skip Gates and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, whose much trumpeted altercation leading to the Obama beer summit. So where was Thompson when Leader Reid was praising Obama’s “light-skin” and lack of “Negro dialect”? Most likely doing research for her February 5, 2010 article “NAACP gives Reid an A in latest report card,” in which she mentions Reid’s racist remarks only fleetingly.
In a freak example of journalistic integrity, CNN reporter Shannon Travis describes a tolerant Tea Party experience:
[H]ere’s what you don’t often see in the coverage of Tea Party rallies: Patriotic signs professing a love for country; mothers and fathers with their children; African-Americans proudly participating; and senior citizens bopping to a hip-hop rapper. … It is important to show the colorful anger Americans might have against elected leaders and Washington. But people should also see the orange-vested Tea Party hospitality handlers who welcome you with colorful smiles.
There were a few signs that could be seen as offensive to African-Americans. But by and large, no one I spoke with or I heard from on stage said anything that was approaching racist.
Almost everyone I met was welcoming to this African-American television news producer.
All this from a reporter sent embedded in the rallies to find “nuggets of gold,” video and photos of tea partyers waving racist signs as Mediaite‘s Tommy Christopher speculated.
Ward Connerly has famously noted that “when all else fails, the Left goes to the default position of using race to achieve its objectives.”
This is a playbook example; it’s just that the playbook is getting old.