Drat! Foiled again!
That is going to be the feeling of much of the mainstream media which has been incessantly pushing the narrative about House majority whip Steve Scalise supposedly speaking at a David Duke sponsored white supremacist event in 2002. It turns out that it never happened. Instead he spoke at a local neighborhood association. And who discovered this vital information? A very unexpected source, the liberal Slate. Betsy Woodruff explains what really happened and the reason for the confusion:
Kenny Knight is a longtime associate of David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. He’s been a key player in news that broke on Sunday that indicated Scalise addressed the white supremacist convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization when he was a Louisiana state representative in May 2002.
Knight said on Tuesday that it’s “totally incorrect” to say Scalise spoke at that convention.
“He spoke early in the day to a contingent of people, prior to the conference kicking off,” Knight said. “He was not there as a guest speaker at the conference.”
Uh--oh! Keep in mind the MSM has been flogging their incorrect story on this as was chronicled here on Newbusters at 'Big Three' Give Scalise Controversy 13 Minutes of Coverage In 1 Day and Wash Post, NYT Devote Over 3800 Words to Hyping Scalise Scandal.
Knight goes into more detail on the mixup:
Knight said he set up a morning event for his own civic association in the hotel space before the EURO conference started. Though that event was in the conference’s hospitality room, it wasn’t at all related to the EURO event, he said.
“It was my room to do what I want with it,” he said.
Knight invited then–state Rep. Scalise as well as a representative from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and a person from the American Red Cross to speak to the civic association at the hotel. Knight said he thinks the Red Cross speaker was from a local chapter but didn’t remember specifically. He also said he didn’t remember the names of either of the other speakers. The representative from the sheriff’s department spoke to attendees about a neighborhood watch program, and the person from the Red Cross discussed CPR techniques. Scalise also spoke.
This account was backed up by a second witness of the event:
Barbara Noble, Knight’s then-girlfriend who was also present at the hotel event and who I spoke with separately, corroborated Knight’s account.
“[Scalise] was just up there for a few minutes, maybe 10, 15 at the most, and it was in the morning,” she said.
Noble said that there was no signage, banners, or mention of the EURO conference at the civic association event and that Scalise left immediately after giving his talk.
...Knight’s and Noble’s accounts cast doubt on an emerging narrative: that, as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Josh Schwerin told Politico, the Louisiana Republican “chose to cheerlead for a group of KKK members and neo-Nazis at a white supremacist rally.” If Knight and Noble are right, then the truth is much less theatrical than some make it sound.
Soooo... How long must we wait until all those MSM outlets who jumped on the incorrect version of this "scandal" issue corrections? Oh, and kudos to Slate staff write Betsy Woodruff for investigating this matter.
