Another Breitbart Scam
by digby
Does Andrew Breitbart just lie by reflex? You tell me:
Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.
What does the video show? Not much. Indeed, new interviews show that a much-viewed YouTube recording cited as evidence by conservatives was actually shot well after the time in question.
[...]
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.
Questioned about using a video on his Web site from the wrong moment, Breitbart stood by his claim that the lawmakers were lying.
"I'm not saying the video was conclusive proof," he said.
Of course not, you scumbag con artist, since it's yet another of your fabulist dirty tricks.
The article also says that Heath Shuler heard the slurs which I didn't know before. I don't know what happened that day, but we know that people were nearly hysterical in that crowd. Earlier one of them had screamed "faggot" at Barney Frank, which was verified by some reporters who were in earshot. We all heard the phone messages with wingnuts slinging the word around and I had heard reports from multiple personal sources that members were getting a lot of racial epithets from callers in the lead up to the health care vote.
There are reports like this every day:
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 spics 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.
You don't have to be wearing a hood to express racist sentiment but it's times like this when such things tend to pop out. And there's something about this movement which makes it easy for people to think it's ok to do it. Everyone can figure out for themselves what that says about the people involved, but to deny that this is happening at all is putting your head in the sand.
And no matter what you may think about all this, taking Andrew Breitbart's word for anything -- especially when it comes to racial issues -- is just stupid.
Update: Apparently Breitbart was at Richard Trumka's speech and the following ensued:
In the question-and-answer session, Breitbart said there is no video or audio evidence of either event happening. Breitbart has, in fact, offered a $100,000 award to anyone who produces evidence that the racial insult actually occurred, and so far he has had no takers.
Until now. As Breitbart spoke, Trumka said he himself had seen the events in question. "I watched them spit at people, I watched them call John Lewis the n-word," Trumka said. "I witnessed it, I witnessed it. I saw it in person. That's real evidence."
h/t to bb
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