Memo to media members wishing to invite the Tea Party Founder on your show, or use him as a source for your biased reports: He isn't exactly who you think he is.
Since the NAACP voted to condemn extremist elements in the Tea Party, news networks, sites, and liberal blogs have rushed to include ‘Tea Party Founder', Dale Robertson, in their reports. Problem being, Dale Robertson as Tea Party anything has frequently and thoroughly been, um ... ‘refudiated'.
Despite this, the media has a history of holding Robertson up as a shining example of Tea Party racism. Why? Robertson once demonstrated a level of ignorance that boggles the mind by holding a sign reading "Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = (N-Word)", at a Houston Tea Party Society (TPS) event.
The reality however, is that Robertson has predominantly self-described, if any, links to the Tea Party movement, while legitimate factions of the movement have had to repeatedly distance themselves from the man. Robertson was expelled from the event at which he was holding the aforementioned sign on the very same day. He was formally denounced in a statement released by the Houston TPS. He was called ‘no friend' of the Tea Party at Pajamas Media, and mocked at RedState. He was shown to be for his infamous sign, before he was against it.
So logically, the media has decided to help further the cause of the NAACP by bringing Robertson back out of the shadows. Since word of the the NAACP resolution got out, Robertson's name has appeared at...
- The Huffington Post
- CBS' Face the Nation
- ABC News
- Beyond Chron, San Francisco's alternative newspaper
- The Kansas City Star
- The Daily Kos
- A blog called The Stir, which also offers a handy list of ‘phrases to drop' to counter the Tea Party defense.
- An Op-Ed at the Daily Caller
- And Mediaite
It should be noted that Mediate refers to the fact that the Houston TPS still has the offending image of Robertson on their web site, in an apparent attempt to demonstrate their tolerance for his bigotry. But it fails to include the context that yes, while the image is on their site, it is there as a reference to explain just who this guy is, and why they have had to deal with him. They actually link to the image with the following statement:
"Yes, at our very first tea party event in February of 2009, this piece of work strolled in with his awful sign, attracting the lone media camera and sentencing us to an eternity of disassociation. We dealt with him on that day, expelling him from the event."
Then of course, there's the NAACP themselves. They have Robertson's photo featured on their page announcing the condemnation of extremist elements in the Tea Party. They were also kind enough to include photos which show the kind of fringe group that could only be protesting a President because he's black, and because they're racist.
For instance, a racist picture of the President being portrayed as Hitler.
No not this one ...
Or this one ...
Or even this one ...
Point being, there are extremist elements in any large group, but the Tea Party themselves have condemned said elements. Not to mention, they have not only had to deal with actual bad seeds at their events, they've had to deal with plants among them as well. Remember the infiltrator scam several months back? Look for them to start cropping up again.
- Rusty welcomes comments/feedback at Weiss.Rusty@gmail.com.
