Tea Party Guilty of Hurling Epithets?

Much has been made and said about the encounter that John Lewis and other Congressional Black Caucus members had with protestors as they walked to the Capitol in Washington DC last month to vote on the health-care bill.

"Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol , angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted "nigger" Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

The protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus , lawmakers said."

Although no audio tape has emerged to confirm these allegations, accounts at the time and since then have largely accepted these charges as truth and have attributed them to the Tea Party.

Assuming that what has been alleged to have been said actually was said, let's be clear that the use of epithets of this sort are unnecessary, crude and disrespectful.

However, given recent reports that a fringe group is seeking to "infiltrate" the Tea Party movement in order to discredit it, why is no one from the media asking whether this group is actually responsible for shouting these words at Democratic lawmakers as they walked past the demonstrators?

"Opponents of the fiscally conservative tea party movement say they plan to infiltrate and dismantle the political group by trying to make its members appear to be racist, homophobic and moronic.

Jason Levin, creator of www.crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15—tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes.

"Every time we have someone on camera saying that Barack Obama isn't an American citizen, we want someone sitting next to him saying, 'That's right, he's an alien from outer space!'" Levin said."

The media should take much more care not to be complicit in the attempts of Mr. Levin and his group to discredit the Tea Party.