Mona Charen addresses the descent of the NAACP from a bona fide civil rights organization into a rump of the Democratic Party. The NAACP was of course back in the news this week on account of its having consigned the Tea Party movement to double secret probation. Mona calls out the NAACP on its ginned-up charge of racism against the Tea Party:
So what is the NAACP talking about? Many of the signs mentioned as racist refer to Barack Obama as a Nazi. While it is no more acceptable to fling the accusation of Nazism at Obama than it was to use it against Bush (which was commonplace), how exactly does it amount to racism?
Worse, the resolution (the text of which has not, as of this writing, been released by the NAACP) reportedly cites the bogus name-calling alleged by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
This charade has been amply exposed by bloggers (see for example Power Line Blog). Alas, for the congressmen who claimed that the tea-party crowd shouted racial epithets at them, a number of videos from different angles have captured the events of that evening. None of them recorded the N-word or anything similar. All of the evidence suggests that the congressmen lied in order to libel as racists those who opposed Obamacare.
Racism was a stain on the American character. But the wanton smear of racism against your political opponents when you are losing the argument on points is pretty ugly, as well.
Mona’s citation alludes to our 18-part “Don’t leave it to Cleaver” series.
The NAACP’s charge against the Tea Party remained ready at hand because the mainstream media have left the congressmen’s phantom n-word fabrication untouched. Let me repeat this point. Some enterprising editor at the Wall Street Journal, or NR, or the Weekly Standard, or Commentary, or the New Criterion, really should commission an article on the pathogenesis and propagation of the lie involved here. It would slightly complicate the task of the the NAACP and its likes elsewhere on the scene.