Rick's Rock vs. Rev. Wright

Town Hall ^ | October 5, 2011 | Brent Bozell

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Is there a clumsier group of newspaper character assassins than the hit squads at The Washington Post? On Oct. 1, the Post was back on the racist-Republican attack with a 3,000 word, investigative treatise over a rock. Specifically, Gov. Rick Perry had leased a property where the N-word was painted on a rock, and then he had it painted over with white paint.

But investigative genius Stephanie McCrummen could see a virtual Klan hood on Perry's head. "As recently as this summer, the slab-like rock -- lying flat, the name still faintly visible beneath a coat of white paint -- remained by the gated entrance to the camp."

Near the end, she underlined it again: "In the photos, it was to the left of the gate. It was laid down flat. The exposed face was brushed clean of dirt. White paint, dried drippings visible, covered a word across the surface. An N and two G's were faintly visible."

Three thousand words on this.

Apparently, investigative reporting at the Post means staring at old rocks under paint (with a microscope?) to discern almost invisible letters and suggesting this should ruin a presidential campaign. It resembles the Post feverishly fumbling through foreign-language dictionaries trying to find a racially defamatory definition for "macaca" to torpedo Sen. George Allen's re-election in 2006.

The fact that these Republicans are racist is never established. Two days after the rock "scoop," a Post front-page article by Amy Gardner found Perry's record on race was "complicated"... by the facts. Yes, Perry "appointed the first African-American to the state Supreme Court and later made him chief justice" and oh, yes, "One chief of staff and two of his general counsels have been African-American." But many "minority legislators (read: Democrats) say Perry has a long history -- dating to his first race for statewide office more than 20 years ago -- of engaging in what they see as racially tinged tactics and rhetoric to gain political advantage."

What kind of offensive tactics? Guess what's listed first: "Black lawmakers have been particularly troubled by Perry's recent embrace of the Tea Party movement."

By contrast, does anyone recall The Washington Post being the first investigative journalism outfit to reveal the racist, anti-American and anti-Semitic rants of Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 2007? Of course not. That fastest-turtle award would go to ABC's Brian Ross on March 13, 2008. By that late date, after all the investigators had finished their naps, 42 states and the District of Columbia had already voted for a nominee.

That's not to say the Post was unfamiliar with the scent of this scandal at Obama's own Trinity United Church of Christ. The news folks could have read Post columnist Richard Cohen denouncing Wright in a column on Jan. 15, 2008, over how Trinity's church magazine fulsomely praised anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan. But the Post "news" hunters weren't turning over that rock.

Five days after the Wright-sermon story finally broke, Barack Obama gave his "historic race speech" in Philadelphia. This was the front-page story The Washington Post offered on that morning: "Congregation Defends Obama's Ex-Pastor: Criticism Seen As Attempt to Silence Black Church."

Eli Saslow's first sympathetic sentence couldn't be more of a clash with Stephanie McCrummen's rock-scrubbing acid poured on Perry: "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright spent 36 years teaching this congregation how to recognize injustice, and his parishioners sense it all around them now." This was also in the first paragraph: "They read a handout that described Wright's newfound infamy as a 'modern-day lynching.'"

You know who ought to recognize injustice? Anyone who reads The Washington Post expecting Republicans and Democrats to be treated with equal fairness and accuracy.

In June, Saslow returned to Wright's church for another hanky-filling story headlined "At Obama's Former Church, Hurt Lingers: Black Congregations Feel Marginalized by Uproar." Perhaps the most ridiculous story came on July 6, when Jonathan Weisman wrote a promotional front-pager headlined "Obama Addresses His Faith: Senator Describes Spiritual Journey." Obama was allowed to declare to audiences how he "let Jesus Christ into his life" on the south side of Chicago. Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ were completely airbrushed out.

The Post should have done more investigating and less sympathizing with Wright. But the Post should have also done more investigating before they published this ridiculous fraction of a story about some painted rock on a Texas ranch. Any editor worth his salt would have laughed the reporter out of his office and back to do more record-scrubbing ... and less paint sniffing.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

What kind of offensive tactics? Guess what's listed first: "Black lawmakers have been particularly troubled by Perry's recent embrace of the Tea Party movement."

Beating the Racism Card [snip] ...."This tells us how to handle these accusations. You don't go along with the script. The script is there to humiliate and destroy, and that is all. Instead, you defy it. Stand up to the accusers and run them off. Since their only power comes from numbers, use numbers against them. The next time an attack occurs during this campaign (as it inevitably will, and probably aimed at Perry), all the candidates must stand as one against the accusers..... The candidates, through public media statements, must make clear their full support of the intended victim. No weasel-wording, no equivocation, no ambiguity. A general statement, signed by all of them, should then be released, presenting a succinct and logical argument as to why such accusations are unacceptable, with each swearing that he or she will stand by the others in any such situation, and ending with a condemnation by name of the accuser.

This can be taken further by conservative columnists, bloggers, and talk-show hosts. The accuser(s) should be keelhauled. The goal will be to make them as miserable as they intended their victims to be, which would act as a form of aversion therapy, forcing them to think twice and then three times about ever pulling the same trick again. (Need I add that the process would also prove valuable in cases involving Congress, industry, state politicians, media, and anywhere else such accusations may arise?)

What will happen is that the accusers will retreat. They are bullies, and that is what bullies do. (Even Andre Carson, a blowhard and loudmouth of the first order, has thought better of his "lynching" comment.) The media will give the GOP candidates all the publicity any pol could want. The GOP voters will go wild. Any further accusations will be unlikely, a benefit to all candidates equally. It would mean a cleaner campaign, an easier victory, and who knows? Perhaps even a step toward a more civil society.

For too long, too many blacks have wallowed in their own private sumps of self-pity, collapsing into whimpers every time somebody mentions blackmail, blackouts, or black markets. It's a pathetic epilogue to the heroism and grandeur of the civil rights movement. It's past time this adolescent posturing was put aside.

It will take some effort to accomplish this. (We'll refer only to the fact that the current incumbent has made no such effort whatsoever.) But the black grievance-hunters are no better than the Dixiecrats of old, using the same methods to keep Americans on edge, in fear, and overcome with anxiety. Using racism for political gain is a cheap and coarse tactic no matter who is involved. It needs to be ended." [end]

[EnglishCon]

Ever heard of Source Amnesia? That is what they are playing here. It is a tool of the media, and a highly effective one. One small tweak of a headline and you can destroy someone totally.

It doesn’t matter that it is a non story and completely ridiculous - the majority of people who see this story in the news will only remember the headline in 6 months. And, being human and fairly cynical, they will remember the headline in the worst possible way. It isn’t something you can educate people out of - the only way to handle it is to bury it.

[AndyTheBear]

"In the photos, it was to the left of the gate. It was laid down flat. The exposed face was brushed clean of dirt. White paint, dried drippings visible, covered a word across the surface. An N and two G's were faintly visible."

Liberals sooooo want to project racism. They really really really really do.

[Lazlo in PA]

Is there a clumsier group of newspaper character assassins than the hit squads at The Washington Post?

Brent has a way with a phrase. That pretty much sums up the Washington Compost. Too bad they shot the wad on "Macacca". Now they are just irrelevant.

[gardencatz]

You know you’ve become irrelevant if you’re literally turning over rocks to get a story.

Cindie

[EDINVA]

Reminds me of a twist on the title of an old Jimmy Breslin book: The Gang That Couldn’t Smear Straight.

[Ladysforest]

*cough* “Too bad they shot the wad on “Macacca”. Now they are just irrelevant.” *cough* hehehe *cough*

[ETL]

"Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal".--James (Jim) Cone,
African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Paperback)
by Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Editor)
____________________________________________

SEAN HANNITY: But Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not backing down and has not for years and in his strong stance on the teaching of black liberation theology is nothing new. He had the same things to say last spring when he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes:"

WRIGHT: If you're not going to talk about theology in context, if you're not going to talk about liberation theology that came out of the '60s, systematized black liberation theology that started with Jim Cone in 1968 and the writings of Cone and the writings of Dwight Hopkins and the writings of womynist theologians and Asian theologians and Hispanic theologians, then you can't talk about the black value system.

HANNITY: But I'm a — reverend

WRIGHT: Do you know liberation theology, sir?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html

[ETL]

Malik Zulu Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP):
"We believe in a Black first philosophy and a Black Liberation Theology."

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1858.shtml
____________________________________________

“Although it [The New Black Panther Party] says it sees capitalism as the fundamental problem with the world and “revolution” as the solution, the new party does not draw its influences from Marxism or Maoism as the original party did. Instead, in a carefully-worded, roundabout form of ethnic nationalism,[8] they say that Marx based his ideology and teachings on indigenous African cultures, and that the NBPP therefore need not look to Marxism or Maoism as a basis for their program, but can look to ideologies that stem directly from those African origins.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Black_Panther_Party#Philosophy.2C_ideology.2C_and_criticism
____________________________________________

"The Justice Department originally brought the case against four armed men who witnesses say derided voters with catcalls of "white devil" and "cracker" and told voters they should prepare to be "ruled by the black man." ..."

“One poll watcher called police after he reportedly saw one of the men brandishing a nightstick to threaten voters.

“As I walked up, they closed ranks, next to each other,” the witness told Fox News at the time. “So I walked directly in between them, went inside and found the poll watchers. They said they’d been here for about an hour. And they told us not to come outside because a black man is going to win this election no matter what.”

He said the man with a nightstick told him, “’We’re tired of white supremacy,’ and he starts tapping the nightstick in his hand. At which point I said, ‘OK, we’re not going to get in a fistfight right here,’ and I called the police.”...”

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?id=48778&letter_id=5485433306

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_110408/content/01125111.guest.html
____________________________________________

"Security" patrols stationed at polling places in Philly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU
__________________________________

Also see:

Black Panthers intimidate voters in Philadelphia with night stick:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzBVxP5wzCY

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Gov. Perry doesn't have a racist bone in his body and Texas Democrats step up to say so. But you don't hear much about that.

“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,”

[Cincinatus' Wife]

If the other candidates don’t come to Perry’s defense on this they will be next in line for knee-capping.

[svcw]

That stupid rock is a non issue. If Perry gets caught up in this crap and unable to stop it fast, well puts doubts in my mind about his ability to lead.
When the rock was brought up he should have said: yea it was there, we didn’t like it, painted over and turned it over, next question. If it’s brought up again he says: I already answered that, next question.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2787561/posts

.....It is too early to tell, of course, whether the issue will doom Perry’s candidacy; it may depend on whether there are further revelations indicating that Perry did too little to address racism in his community, or if he contributed to it. Lengthy follow-ups to Virginia Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” comment — the racially offensive term was aimed at an Asian-American volunteer for his opponent, Democrat Jim Webb — ultimately led to his re-election loss in 2006, as a series of stories in the media revealed allegations that Allen had used racist slurs before.

So far, there is nothing to suggest Perry has actually done anything wrong is this matter — or anything else. But to some, his silence now is problematic....”

[Cincinatus' Wife]

That’s what they said.

But the MSM doesn’t want an explanation.

They want hundreds of character assassination headlines.

[Essie]

He has not been silent. He has addressed this matter. And if something this idiotic harms his candidacy, we are doomed as a nation because we are so dumb.

P.S. When George Allen lost it was an effective time to play the race card. President Obama and his people have used it so many times that it no longer resonates the way it did.

[EnglishCon]

I agree. If the guy was a racist, I’d not support him at all - I hate that crap. The problem is dubious headlines get remembered.

[Christian4Bush]

bump

[Venturer]

It is funny that Democrats feel that we should not support Rick Perry because they claim he is racist, and yet they support Barrack Hussein Obama because he is racist.

No one can deny Obama’s racism——it’s as plain as the nose on your face.