Squashing dissent with slander and libel

I really thought that the media and political class were starting to get it. The giggling from tea bag jokes started to subside and “mainstream” media coverage seemed less slanted. The maladjusted schoolboy bullies seemed to be maturing. It turns out that the only thing developing was the complexity of their anti-tea party propaganda campaign.

Fresh off the heels of the extremely contentious health care “reform” vote, supporters of the political status quo (who, according to polls, are fewer and fewer) are ramping up the anti-tea party propaganda campaign. Most notable is the resurfacing of the toxic tea party racism claim.

The president, his advisers, his political allies, and their cheerleaders in the media have turned to the race card with disturbing speed and frequency over the last year. To write the tea party movement off as driven by racism or comprised of racists is both inaccurate and offensive to the men and women that have and continue to fight against real racism and bigotry and to the concerned Americans who stand up for what they believe in. Shame on the partisans that attempt to sully the reputations and silence the voices of these concerned patriots with such vile accusations.

As President Obama is fond of saying, let me be clear: the tea party movement is not about race. The fact of the matter is that the violent, racist crowds drawn to the tea parties are the leftist opposition. Of course, this is widely underreported. In fact, it’s papered over with articles delving into the alleged racist undercurrent of the tea party movement or citing non-existent incidences of racism. Take the recent op-ed from Colbert King at the Washington Post that attempts to link the racism of the Ku Klux Klan and the story of the Little Rock Nine to the tea party movement through nothing but the sheer vicinity of the two stories in his incredibly irresponsible article. Then there is the claim that a racial slur was hurled at the Congressional Black Caucus by tea partiers this past Saturday – a claim widely reported in the media. While there is speculation that the offender was a political operative plant, Andrew Breitbart has offered a $10,000 cash reward for anyone who can prove that this happened not fifteen times as claimed, but once. To date, no evidence has been found to show that the incident actually took place.

If it weren’t such an egregious hijacking of a serious societal concern, the Left’s propensity for playing the racism card would be laughable. In President Obama’s own campaign trail words, he and his allies are working diligently to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” Might that be what the tea party movement is about?