NYT Political Writer Repeats False Tea Party Racism Charge

July 19th, 2010 9:52 AM

Just how much of a liberal cocoon does New York Times political reporter Matt Bai live in? Apparently a mighty thick one judging by the fact that he thought he could repeat a provably false lie about a supposed example of Tea Party racism in his most recent article. Almost everybody with even a little bit of political savvy can already guess what example I am referring to but let us allow Bai to repeat the false charge:

The question of racism in the amorphous Tea Party movement is, of course, a serious one, since so much of the Republican Party seems to be in the thrall of its activists. There have been scattered reports around the country of racially charged rhetoric within the movement, most notably just before the vote on the new health care law last March, when Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, the legendary civil rights leader, was showered with hateful epithets outside the Capitol.

Most notably that charge of racially charged rhetoric has been disproven...unless Bai has some video proof that he can use to collect the $100,000 prize offered by Andrew Breitbart to demonstrate otherwise. We do know that Bai's liberal bubble has caused him to recite other political fantasies such as the idea the the Republicans are facing big trouble in the November elections.

As for his latest fantasy about what happened at the March 20 Tea Party gathering in Washington, D.C., Bai has a lot of liberal company. Yesterday George Will had to correct Clarence Page on ABC's "This Week" when the false charge was again repeated by the Chicago Tribune correspondent.

Unfortunately there is no comments section adjoining Bai's article where readers could correct Bai's false charge. However, Bai's falsehood is being challenged in the blogosphere at such sites as American Power and  Powerline which concluded:

The real problem with Bai's assertion is that it didn't happen. It's a big lie. A complete and utter crock. Thus the failure of any independent witness or journalist to vouch for the story, and the failure of any video to corroborate it and win Andrew Breitbart's $100,000 reward. On the contrary, the video record decisively refutes the story. 

So unless Matt Bai has proof which will allow him to collect Andrew Breitbart's money, we expect the New York Times to remove the false charge, along with a written correction, from Matt Bai's erroneous article in 5... 4... 3... 2...