George Will on Sunday challenged Vice President Joe Biden and the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page about the as yet unproven allegation that a Tea Party member called a black Congressman the N-word earlier this year.
During the Roundtable segment of ABC's "This Week," host Jake Tapper asked Page about the recent resolution by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People condemning alleged racism in the Tea Party.
Page replied, "We can debate over whether or not Congressmen really were called the N-word or not. It's a he said/he said dispute."
Will was having none of this, and marvelously addressed the flaw in Page's thinking (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JAKE TAPPER, Host: Clarence, why did the NAACP spend so much time or at least get so much attention for condemning the Tea Party movement? Is this an important priority for them?
CLARENCE PAGE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Rightly or wrongly, they are voicing the sentiments that a lot of African-Americans feel and the liberal establishment, if you will. And we can debate over whether or not congressmen really were called the N-word or not. It's a he said/he said dispute.
But what's more fundamentally important, Jake, is a year ago we were talking about, is the NAACP still relevant when you've got a black president? Now the NAACP is on page one leading the domestic discussion this week. This is probably the most talked-about issue of the week.
And they are diametrically opposed to the Tea Party in virtually every way, demographically, philosophically, et cetera. It makes sense that they would be in dispute. But this is all being played out on talk shows like this one, and I think we're doing a very good job of it.
GEORGE WILL, ABC: Precisely. There's nothing like name-calling and a kind of left-wing McCarthyism to enable the NAACP to make a desperate lunge for its vanished relevance. You say that this episode that he's talking about and the vice president made an oblique reference to it is he said/he said, whether or not the N-word was used. It's a he said and four television cameras monitoring that event say it didn't happen.
PAGE: A lot of noise. People were yelling things of all kinds, so...
WILL: A talk radio host in this country has offered $100,000 to anyone who can produce a shred of evidence that it happened.
PAGE: Right.
WILL: A hundred thousand dollars still on the table.
Will was obviously talking about internet publisher Andrew Breitbart, and was quite right about nobody collecting the award yet.
As such, regardless of what folks on the left continue to say about this matter - including those in the media - nobody has yet proven that any black Congressman was called the N-word that day.
But Will wasn't done. At the end of this segment, Tapper asked a great question:
TAPPER: George, we only have 30 seconds, but -- but do the -- the Tea Party leaders that I just read their op-ed, do they have a point in that we demand the conservatives to condemn isms in their side, but not liberals?
WILL: Well, what -- during the many protests against George W. Bush and the pictures of him with a Hitler moustache and the swastikas associated with him, I don't recall -- I may be wrong -- but I don't recall a clamor of denunciation from the Bush's critics.
TAPPER: All right. Now, one thing...
PAGE: I agree with that.
As do I, although I'll take it a step further: not only didn't media condemn such behavior under Bush like they are now, but instead they encouraged and applauded it.
Once again, what a difference a "D" makes.
