Brody's Notes... Tea Partiers and Conservative Bloggers: No Video Of Abusive Epithets? -Then It's Not True

Political Cartoon By Nick Anderson

The Houston Chronicle

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Mar 23 |  One headline on a Gay Conservative Blog read: ABC News Inflames Race and Gay Baiting In America. Others were existentially variations on the same theme. According to this particular blogger commenting Sunday;

"Last night David Muir, anchor of World News Saturday, breathlessly opened his broadcast with the fact (according to him) that John Lewis and Barney Frank were attacked verbally by conservative protestors.

ABC News had (and still has) no substantiation of the Lewis and Frank charges. Presumably the ABC News race & gay baiting shrillness rested on this flimsy report in yesterday’s Washington Post (an ABC News partner)"

He then proceeded to list the events as chronicled by more than a dozen news gathering organisations and agencies as well as numerous individual journalists including this correspondent that witnessed these events: 

"Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said that he was walking into the Capitol to vote when a protester spat on him. Police quickly responded and detained the protester, Cleaver said in a statement, but the lawmaker declined to press charges.

Others hurled epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights leader, and Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) as they left the Capitol after Obama’s speech. “They were shouting the N-word,” Carson told reporters. “It was like a page out of a time machine.” 

Observers also said that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was heckled with anti-gay epithets inside the Longworth House Office Building.

"I have heard things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to get off the back of the bus,” said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking black official in Congress."

The blogger, Bruce Carroll, then concluded with this statement: 

"Who are these “observers”? Isn’t it very, very convenient that Barney Frank — the most well-known gay Congressman — and John Lewis — the most well-known civil rights leader in Congress — were THE Members that happened to be the ones insulted.

Why, pray tell, doesn’t Rep. Cleaver press charges?  I WANT to know who this alleged race-baiter was.  Aren’t Democrats always whining about “hate crimes”?  So come on, Cleaver, press charges.  If it was a Tea Party protester — call them out.  I want to know.

This entire weekend has been a bunch of crap and public relations stunts by Democrats that were simply reported, without checking, by the Mainstream Media.  ABC News should be ashamed of itself for forwarding these outrageous and completely uncorroborated stories of hate mongering by protesters.  They are doing this nation a severe disservice which I believe we will all live to regret.

It is completely disheartening to this American who was raised to think that the media was independent, the Constitution was the law of the land, and that we live in a Republic form of government.

This weekend, our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves."

A spokesperson for media watchdog organisation, MediaMatters for America, a web-based, nonprofit, progressive research and information centre, dedicated to monitoring, analysis and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media, said; 

"...that it was unfortunate, misleading, and dishonest that the conservative bloggers continue to wage this type of smear campaign even in light of reporting on the subject by outlets such as Fox News that also verified the incidents."