Posted on 04/06/2010 6:45:13 PM PDT by paltz
On March 20, Rep. Andre Carson, an Indiana Democrat, first told reporters that health care protesters outside the Capitol hurled racial slurs at fellow Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) member Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia. Mr. Carson came off the House floor and told reporters his story about health care protesters hurling racial slurs during their walk from the Cannon Building to the chambers.
While we were interviewing Mr. Carson, Lauren Victoria, a freelance journalist and "unofficial" CBC blogger saw us talking to the Indiana Democrat:
"I don't know if I was the first to report, but I did Twitter using my BlackBerry once I'd had a chance to talk to Andre Carson. It's not like some reporter runs up to you and tells you something and you can instantly report on it second-hand. I want to find that member and determine what really happened.
I went to the lobby after the vote and saw six journalists around Carson. This was very rare, because he's such a junior guy. So there are a bunch of people around him and I heard only the tail end of the story. He saw me and knew I'd joined the group late, so he stuck around and retold the story. Other reporters probably had to find their computers, author the article and have it edited, while I just used Twitter at that time."
Below is the transcript of the interview a few reporters (including myself) had with Mr. Carson (AUDIO):
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Interesting...
So who claimed the $100,000?
Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
I want proof.
Kind of like I want proof Obama was born in Hawai’i.
Proof or they’re lying.
Always the race card.
None will be forthcoming either despite Breightbart's offer of a $100,000 reward for such evidence because it didn't happen.
No proof = never happened.
But does it matter? When the lie is reported as a truth how do you take that back? It’s out there and serving the purpose they wanted it to serve.
As of now, no audio or video have been produced to confirm Mr. Carson’s claim.
None will be forthcoming either despite Breightbart’s offer of a $100,000 reward for such evidence because it didn’t happen.
##
Not only is there no proof, there is no credible accusation.
I'm sure that if the Congressman had been a Republican, even a black Republican, that story would not have been reported without the usual fact-checking.
I think one of the Black Caucus guys was listening to rap music on his ipod and had the volume up too high and someone heard the performer say “N——R” 20 or 30 times.
This is really starting to remind me of Peter Arnett’s “Pull it, sir” Prize-winning fable of the mystery lieutenant’s assertion that “We had to destroy the village to save the village”. (Somebody correct me if I’ve screwed up my facts. I’ll take it like a man, unlike Arnett.)
Er, sorry, dude. You're just makin' it up as you go along, and it shows. I saw the tape. They did nothing of the kind. All that happened is that you clowns just swaggered through. One of y'all came back to wave a well-manicured finger at the guy who was yelling "Kill the bill!" Maybe the finger-wagger was somebody named Bill who didn't grasp the allusion to legislation. When "Bill" came back with a policemen, he couldn't find the guy, even though he was standing right in front of him.
When someone says he felt like he was "reliving history," it's because he didn't have a real experience he can describe. He doesn't want to get too specific, because he can't, and he's trying not to get caught in a lie.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/weblogs/watercooler/2010/mar/20/congressman-claims-health-care-bill-protesters-hur/
So much for sending a college grad to visit a neighborhood dive in Bronx (was it?).
Read the whole article, then read about Andre Carson- this is so bogus that a 12 year old, writing for their school paper, could have done a better job of fact checking. Carson either made the story up or was hallucinating. Take your pick. He’s not just your ordinary first term Congressman- his Leftist and Muslim roots go deep.
Oh, I know it’s not true, but my point was that the reporter didn’t even try to corroborate the story before she put it out there.
The videos above and below were taken as Mr. Lewis and Mr. Carson walked toward a crowd of protesters, and racial epithets from the crowd appear to be absent from the different scenes captured.
A U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman said she was unaware of any law enforcement inquiry into the incidents.
Rep Emanuel Cleaver II, Missouri Democrat, who is black, claimed he was spat on by a protester. Mr. Cleaver's office reportedly said Capitol Police arrested the protester, but his office did not press charges. However, Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the U.S. Capitol Police said in an e-mail to the L.A. Times, "We did not make any arrests today."
----snip
--snip---The Washington Times caught up with several health care bill protesters, all three of whom are black, and asked their thoughts on the allegations regarding the racial epithets.
"I had a chance to be among these people. It's not about pigmentation. You have race issues going on all the time; however, I'm not seeing anything significant from these rallies. It's just not there," he said. "Does a person find a racist once in a while? . . . Sure, you find that anywhere. These people are concerned about the issues of where you stand, not what color you are."
Charlene Freedman, a health care bill protester from New Jersey, has been to Washington four times, since she first attended the 9/12 rally. When asked if she witnessed or heard any racial hostility from the crowd, she said: "Absolutely not . . . just well-wishers. I didn't see color. They didn't see my color. We're just American citizens, and we're here to say, 'Keep America free.' I’ve heard nothing about racism . . . nothing at all."
Jay Jarbo came to the health care protest from Atlanta and explained: "I just want to see them follow the Constitution, and they're not doing that. Anyone that tries to throw around the racial thing, just squash it, because this has nothing to do with race. I haven't heard anyone say anything about race at any one of these events," Mr. Jarbo said. "Honestly, this is the type of thing people bring up to distract from the real issues, and it's always about race in this country, and its always the last card in the deck that everyone plays."
As I said, there is NO CREDIBLE accusation. Andre Carson is certainly not credible.
No serious person believes that this happened.
It was a plant.
The video I saw was a guy placing both hands up to his mouth as if he were shouting - and, it became obvious he was shouting the 'n' word and spitting on Congressman Clyburn...
"It became obvious."
Not "you could hear it" or "the word is on the tape" but "it became obvious."
It's a word. You can either hear the word or you can't hear the word. It doesn't "become obvious" that somebody is saying something unless you hear it.
And Cleaver (not Clyburn) was certainly not spit on. He decided about twenty feet away to claim he got spit on. You can almost see the little light bulb flick on over his head right before he pretends to wipe something off his cheek.
How long would you walk around with somebody's spit on your cheek?
Fabrication is an art known to Liberals and Tyrants.
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