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July 13, 2010 Posted by Scott at 5:14 AM

There is one problem with the story: It didn't happen. We believe that we demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt over the course of our 18-part "Don't leave it to Cleaver" series that it didn't happen.The congressmen's story was a fabrication intended to defame the Tea Party movement and distract attention from the resistance to Obamacare.

Under circumstances where such evidence would exist if the incident had occurred, no audio or video recording corroborates it, despite Andrew Breitbart's offer of a $100,000 reward to anyone producing such evidence. And no independent journalist or other eyewitness has stepped forward to vouch for the congressmen's story -- because it didn't happen.

We posted correspondence from reader Greg Farrell providing his own testimony denying that the incident happened in part 7, part 16, and elsewhere in our series. Farrell had sent us his photographs documenting his position at the March 20 protest. Farrell was in a good position to testify: It didn't happen.

Given the involvement of Rep. Clyburn in promoting the story, the fabrication extends to the Democratic congressional leadership. It is a scandal that warrants the attention of the mainstream media, but instead the mainstream media continue robotically to repeat it.

ABC did it again yesterday in a story linked by Drudge and thus read by millions. ABC's Human Khan reported:

First Lady Michelle Obama brought renewed energy to the NAACP today, delivering the keynote speech at the annual convention one day before the nation's largest civil rights group is expected to condemn what it calls racist elements in the Tea Party movement.
First Lady Michelle Obama Addresses NAACP

The nation's largest and oldest civil rights organization will vote on the resolution Tuesday during its annual convention in Kansas City, Mo.

In her speech, the first lady focused on the issue of childhood obesity and her "Let's Move" initiative, but outside of her remarks, anti-Tea Party activism has been a key focus of the gathering, which conservative leaders say is driven solely by a political agenda.

Tea Party members have used "racial epithets," have verbally abused black members of Congress and threatened them, and protestors have engaged in "explicitly racist behavior" and "displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically," according to the proposed resolution.

The NAACP represents some of Barack Obama's hardiest supporters. How thoughtful of the mainstream media to have left the story of the phantom n-word ready at hand for the likes of the NAACP to use it against the resistance to Obama. One might almost think there is method to this madness.

Huma Khan is ABC's "digital editor." Surely she knows that the March 20 n-word story represents a highly disputed assertion of fact, and knowledge of the dispute enters her story. Yet she introduces evidence from elsewhere on the Internet to lend the story credence:

In March, Tea Party protesters opposing the health care bill were alleged to have shouted racial slurs at black House members in the halls of Congress, a charge that Tea Party supporters say has not been proven. Liberal blogs have also seized on signs that have appeared in Tea Party protests, comparing President Obama to a monkey.

Khan does not mention Breitbart's unclaimed bounty, nor does she note that conservative blogs have seized on the March 20 n-word concoction to argue that the story represents an incredibly tired effort to stigmatize opposition to President Obama as racist.

Khan minimally acknowledges the disputed nature of the March 20 incident, but she also quotes the Rev. C.L. Bryant. Bryant is a former president of NAACP's Garland, Texas, chapter who is now a Tea Party activist. Khan quotes Bryant to the effect that the imputation of racism to to the Tea Party is "simply a lie." The NAACP wants to "create a climate where they can say that those on the right are in fact racist and those on the left are their saviors," he added. "This is very much what the liberal agenda is about." As we used to say: Right on!

Some enterprising editor at the Wall Street Journal, or NR, or the Weekly Standard, or Commentary, or the New Criterion, really should commission an article on the pathogenesis and propagation of the lie involved in the NAACP resolution. It would make a highly illuminating case study. It would also slightly complicate the efforts of the NAACP and its ilk to stigmatize dissent from the Obama program of national socialism as racist.

FOOTNOTE: Readers interested in a serious exploration of the larger subject may want to consider Timothy Dalrymple's "Is the Tea Party racist?" Dalrymple writes: "The charge that the Tea Party is racist is a perfect object lesson in liberal misinterpretation of conservatives." And it is misinterpretation with a purpose."

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/07/026743.php