Smears From Behind Closed Doors, Live On The Internet

The National Association For The Supremacy Of Colored People, ladies and gentlemen: a... unique hybrid of racist malice and hapless bungling:

Just as NA[S]CP delegates were debating a resolution Tuesday afternoon condemning racist elements within the Tea Parties, one NA[S]CP member complained that there were reporters in the room even though it was supposed to be closed to the press. At this point, a live webcast broadcasting the event (which I was watching) was cut off.

When I contacted the NA[S]CP press office earlier in the day, a spokesman at first insisted that I wasn't watching a live broadcast, but in fact a rerun from last year, or the night before. After the webcast got cut off, I called again, and a spokeswoman was startled that anything would have been broadcast online, reiterating that the resolutions process was supposed to be closed to the media. They seemed genuinely caught offguard, and promised to get back to me while they investigated what was happening.

Does it strike anybody else as....odd on the face of it that these libelmongering deliberations were closed to the public?  Why does slandering one's political enemies require such lengthy discussions at all, much less cloak & dagger secrecy?  And were the proceedings getting sent out in a live 'net feed accidental, or did the TPers managed to infiltrate the NASCP convention and carry out partially successful sabotage?  BWA hahahaha!

Here's one possible reason for close-to-the-vest-ism: the resolution may have gotten a wee bit watered-down:

The text’s not online yet but it sounds like they scaled back the accusation from the entire movement to simply certain unspecified people within it. Which is the safe route, of course. Smearing everyone would go too far even by the standards of some liberals, including The One. (Remember when he distinguished between a “core group” of crank-ish tea partiers and more principled members who have legitimate ideological differences?) Focusing on an unnamed number of racists and then demanding that the rest of the tea party formally denounce them — as though TP leaders, some of them minorities themselves, haven’t done that whenever the media’s chased them down for a quote when working on stories in this vein — is much shrewder politically, as it lets lefties continue to play the “six degrees of Heinrich Himmler” guilt-by-association game whenever some moron with a racist sign pops up at a tea-party rally.

I would characterize it as "slightly less politically insane," since it doesn't constitute a runaway rhetorical escalation to where the VERY next step would be violence.  Instead, it's just more of the same ineffective, flailing cliche-spewing that hasn't gained any traction over the past year.  Assuming, of course, that the resolution WAS watered down.  That gets at the other odd aspect of the text of this resolution not being released to the public yet.  Almost as if they're....holding it in reserve for...."some reason".

Happily, the TPers saw no reason to hold back their return-fire:

St. Louis Tea Party Coalition Resolution
July 12, 2010

Whereas, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded to advance the position of minority groups, and

Whereas a hallmark of the NAACP has been to do the important work of identifying and exposing remaining vestiges of racism and discrimination, and

Whereas the NAACP vocally stands against the discriminatory and harmful practice of labeling people with a broad brush, and

Whereas the NAACP decided to launch their 101st National Convention with a resolution condemning the Tea Party movement and labeling millions of their fellow Americans who subscribe to the movement as “racists”, and

Whereas the “Tea Party movement” is a label applied to patriotic Americans who have expressed their political free speech in the grand tradition of all that is American, that being the spirited expression of viewpoints in a 100% peaceful manner, and

Whereas, it is a hallmark of America that we settle our disputes civilly and avoid the gutter tactic of attempting to silence opponents by inflammatory name-calling, and
Whereas the very term “racist” has diminished meaning due to its overuse by political partisans including members of the NAACP, and

Whereas, the NAACP had an opportunity to preserve some semblance of legitimacy by standing up for Ken Gladney, the victim of a vicious racist battery conducted by a black avowed communist, even labeling him an “Uncle Tom”, but chose instead to use the opportunity to mock the St. Louis Tea Party, and

Whereas, the NAACP has refused to denounce the New Black Panthers' call to murder white cops and their babies, and

Whereas, the NAACP does its entire membership a grave disservice by hypocritically engaging in the very conduct it purports to oppose,

Now therefore be it resolved that the St. Louis Tea Party condemns the NAACP for lowering itself to the dishonorable position of a partisan political attack dog organization, and,

Be it further resolved that the St. Louis Tea Party calls on similar organizations to join in unanimous condemnation of this despicable behavior, and

Be it further resolved that we demand that the NAACP withdrawal their bigoted, false and inflammatory resolution against the tea party for any further consideration, and

Be it further resolved that these organizations call on the Internal Revenue Service to evenly apply their standards and consider the tax-exempt status of the NAACP considering the degree to which they are engaging in habitual partisan political behavior.

Adopted unanimously, this day, July 12th, in the year of our LORD, 2010.

A copy of this resolution shall be sent immediately to the NAACP at: washingtonbureau@naacpnet.org

The radical Left wants a war; congratulations, comrades, you'll get one.  But it will be the kind that you cannot win.