NewsBusters has a story about a recent interview on NPR (11-30-2010) where Jimmy Carter said he never criticized the Tea Party:
REHM: Last question, very briefly, what do you think of the Tea Party movement?
CARTER: You know, I never have criticized the Tea Party movement because, strangely enough, I capitalized on the same kind of situation politically that has made the Tea Party successful — that is, an extreme dissatisfaction with what was going on in Washington. Because I came along right after Watergate and right after the Vietnam lost and right after the assassination of the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, Jr., and so I capitalized on that, and I was elected over some very wonderful people who were U.S. senators and immersed in the Washington scene.
In case you didn’t catch it, the interview/video at the top refutes this NPR interview.
So what about those signs that Brian Williams mentions? Not a lot of people realize this, but most of the signs with connections of Obama to Hitler are actually from what I term as a political cult. It just so happens this cult is a Democratic one. For instance, as a reminder, remember this exchange?
So, since most of these sign wielding nuts are actually Democrats, where does that leave Carter’s critique?
In 1979, LaRouche formed a Political Action Committee called the National Democratic Policy Committee (NDPC). LaRouche has run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States seven times, beginning in 1980….
Read more: RPT Texas Democrat Wants to Abolish U.N. and Impeach Obama (Lyndon LaRouche Candidate)
What are all those signs about? Is there some sort of study of them done to find out if there is a percentage of them that are racially tinged?
UCLA study: Most tea party signs not racist
A study conducted by a UCLA grad student at the 9/12 taxpayer march on Washington contains some bad news for one of the mainstream media’s favorite narratives: the old ‘racist teabaggers’ meme.
Conversely, quantitative observation showed that the alleged racism was not prominent at the rally, at least not as far as signage is concerned. And to think Obamacrats wasted all those race cards for nothin’.
[….]
The investigation showed only 25% of signs expressing antagonism towards the President himself, only 5% touching on the President’s ethnicity or faith, and a piddly 1% promoting ‘Birtherism’.
I presume the 1% was newly anointed ‘birther’ Jake Tapper, respected journalist of ABC News – or once respected until he had the temerity to mention the President’s long form birth certificate the other day.
The teabag obsessed Obama apologists at MSNBC and the New York Times will no doubt be bitterly disappointed to learn that despite the breathless hype, racism no more typifies the tea party movement than honest unslanted analysis typifies their political coverage.
This study didn’t stop the questionable signs and ask if they were Lyndon LaRouche followers. Here is another story — old news, but needed for this recent news:
NewsBusters reported Thursday, a UCLA graduate student has published a study debunking the myth that the Tea Party is racist.
On Monday, Gretchen Carlson invited the study’s author on “Fox & Friends” to do what every news outlet ought to, namely, tell the truth about what the movement that is radically changing the political landscape is really all about.
[….]
Isn’t it interesting how easily this study was done?
As Carlson asked Ekins, why haven’t any news outlets, apart from Fox News and conservative websites, done any investigation into the allegations of racism within this movement to see if they were at all true?
Yes, that was a rhetorical question, for media have been trying to either dismiss or demonize the Tea Party since its inception.
So, is this merely another nail in the “worst one’s” irrelevance coffin? I say yes, but I am sure there are NPR fans out there that disagree with me.