Fox News' tea party boosterism backfires

[and-justice-for-all]

Breitbart hasn't been the only Fox News friend to have a bad week.

On July 14, Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams wrote a "newly discovered letter" from NAACP president "Precious Ben Jealous" to Abraham Lincoln which portrayed blacks as lazy and Jealous as supporting the repeal of civil-rights laws so that "massa" would again take care of blacks. The letter was subsequently condemned by both Republicans and Democrats as offensive, and led to the expulsion of the TPE from the National Tea Party Federation. Today, Williams "completely cut his ties to the Tea Party Express" and resigned.

The uproar marks a low-point for the relatively new Tea Party Express after it shot onto the national stage thanks to Fox News (sound familiar?).

In August 2009, when the group kicked off its first tour, the TPE became the most visible tea party organization on Fox News, appearing on countless programs. Front and center was Mark Williams, then-chairman of the group. Fox News regularly gave viewers the dates and locations of rallies, with one reporter saying she wanted "to let folks know" their schedule so "they can be a part" of events. Another "reporter" was embedded on the group's bus and gave such fawning reports that a colleague called him a "Tea Party groupie." Fox News offered similarly positive coverage for the group's second and third tours in the fall and spring.

As Media Matters documented, Fox News has openly admitted being the voice of the opposition against the administration. It was natural, then, that Fox News fostered the tea party movement, and defended it from criticism for being pseudo-grassroots and pushing incendiary and racist rhetoric. But if Fox News' intention was to present the tea parties as an independent and reasonable voice for fiscal conservatism, they partnered with the wrong group.

Politico's Ken Vogel noted that the Tea Party Express was started by Republican operatives with the intent of cashing in on the tea party movement. Vogel also reported that "even before the Express launched, Wierzbicki worried about having Williams -- along with another PAC figure, Deborah Johns -- as movement figureheads. 'Sure wish Mark and Deborah were just a bit more sophisticated and experienced and 'presentable,' Wierzbicki wrote to a colleague last summer."

Indeed, Williams appears to come from the Ann Coulter School of Punditry, where graduates are purposely controversial in order to garner publicity and money. In recent years, Williams has claimed: Presidents Obama and Carter are "Nazis"; the NAACP makes "more money off of race than any slave trader ever"; Allah is a "monkey god"; Obama is "Our Half White, Racist President"; Obama is an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug turned anointed"; Obama is "engaging in nothing different than did mass murders like Stalin and Pol Pot"; Obama's raping the country; Obama wants death panels like Nazi experiments; voting Democrat may result in a nuclear holocaust; President Carter is a "creepy little faggot"; and -- deep breath -- Obama lacks a valid birth certificate.

Williams, who's received tens of thousands of dollars in "consulting" fees from Our Country Deserves Better PAC, appears to enjoy the attention, telling Dave Weigel in April: "I'm accustomed to being a pin cushion and a lightning rod ... That's one of the things I bring to the table." (Spouting hateful remarks has also earned Williams frequent guest spots on CNN, where Williams has defended his indefensible remarks -- then been invited back anyway.)

Yet as indicated this week, other members of the tea party movement don't enjoy the attention -- especially in the wake of the NAACP resolution condemning racist elements within the tea parties. Ironically, the very spokesman propped up by Fox News to speak for the tea parties proved that the movement has racist elements within it.

It really hasn't been a good week for Fox News friends Mark Williams and Andrew Breitbart.