Council of Conservative Citizens, Descendants of the KKK, Urge Tea Party to Flaunt Its Racism

What tangled webs the right wing weaves. The NAACP issued a resolution urging the Tea Party to reject its racist elements. Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, explained its position on Hardball with Chris Matthews, noting that the infamous Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that traces its lineage to the KKK, boasted of its influence within the Tea Party.

JEALOUS: — you know, and you see those old themes and then you go to the Web site of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which is a — which is (INAUDIBLE) —
MATTHEWS: Well, that is an old — that‘s an Dixie crowd, obviously. Yes.
JEALOUS: I mean straight up. They say that black people are not genetically equipped to participate in democracy.
MATTHEWS: But that — but that group isn‘t associated with the Tea Party. That‘s the old like —
JEALOUS: Yes, they are. No, no. Yes they are.
MATTHEWS: I thought that was the old White Citizens Council with a new name.
JEALOUS: Exactly. And you go online and — and they celebrate their participation in the Tea Party.
MATTHEWS: OK.
JEALOUS: And (INAUDIBLE) —
MATTHEWS: Let‘s get to some elected officials here.

Here is a typical CCC-Tea Party entry:

Leftist Florida state attorney fires prosecutor for speaking at TEA Party rallies.
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Skip Jarvis ordered a prosecutor to stop speaking at TEA Party rallies and then fired her when she refused. Skip Jarvis issued a textbook Soviet style statement declaring that state employees “can’t take a position against the state!” Soviet Commissar, I mean Florida State Attorney, Skip Jarvis Phone: ———

Matthews treated mention of the CCC like a hot potato. If anyone doubts Jealous, simply research the issue, you know, journalistic due diligence, that sort of thing. In response to the NAACP resolution, wingnut smear merchant Andrew Breitbart released a phony, heavily edited videotape purporting to show “reverse racism” by Shirley Sherrod, a USDA official.

This is but one example of how Andrew Breitbart, the wingnut blogger who ambushed Shirley Sherrod, influences the debate on race against the truth and a cowed MSM. Breitbart fed Fox News the phony video, and Fox being Fox ran it unquestioningly. Breitbart refused to apologize for nearly destroying an honorable woman’s career. He even had the audacity to claim innocence of the practice. To date, the only Fox News host to man up and apologize for running the phony story is Bill O’Reilly.

This is part of a pattern of fabricated Fox “news” sowing fear in its lily-white audience (fewer than 2% of Fox viewers are black) against African Americans. Only Rachel Maddow has given this practice, blowing the lid off the faux toxic “journalism” of the right, the coverage it deserves. The Tea Party racism and its associations with extremist fringe racist groups is not a matter of speculation. Yet Breitbart’s aggressive smoke-and-mirrors right wing pushback has succeeded in neutralizing one of the most disturbing aspects of the Tea Party from objective and thorough coverage in the MSM. What Breitbart does isn’t journalism; it’s right wing advocacy propaganda. By injecting a false equivalence into issues of vulnerability to the right, its propagandists (Breitbart, Fox, Limbaugh, et al) obfuscate the issue sufficiently that truth is the ultimate casualty.

And it’s not the first time Breitbart has done this. Dumping ‘Fox Lies and Videotape’ on a jittery MSM cowering in the corner is part of his MO. He loves bullying and browbeating liberals into submission. After his yelling match with David Schuster, in which David was screwed by MSNBC management, some MSNBCers (except their primetime trio of Ed Schulz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow) seem skittish around the Breitbart story, echoing their MSM colleagues.

Big Eddie fears no one, and that’s what progressives admire most about the combative, take-no-prisoners populist fighter for the middle class. Eddie said he cornered Breitbart out in the hall and invited — challenged — him to go on ‘The Ed Show.’ Breitbart weaseled out claiming to be “tired” or busy or … whatever. This is typical of how bullies behave. If you show them any weakness a la Tamron Hall rolling over for a racist Son of the Confederacy (“I really press them for an answer” –- yeah, right), the Breitbarts of this world with their keen smell for fear, will pounce. The minute you look bullies in the eye the way Big Ed did, and say “put up or shut up, asshole,” they wilt. Because that’s what bullies are: They’re cowards who prey on the weak. I challenge every one of MSNBC’s hosts to do as Big Eddie: Issue an open invitation to Andrew Breitbart to come on and explain himself, no holds barred — not only about Shirley Sherrod, but about the ACORN tapes and his role in other likely illegal ventures.

Your move.