Don’t leave it to Cleaver, part 8

In part 6 of our Don’t Leave It to Cleaver miniseries we took a look at the AP’s review of the case of the missing “N-word” arising from the claim that Obamacare protesters subjected Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, John Lewis and Andre Carson to racial abuse as they walked through the crowd outside the Capitol on March 20.
One could deduce the lack of any supporting evidence to support the congressmen’s story from the AP’s review, but AP correspondent Jesse Washington cited a fourth congressman to support the story of Cleaver, Lewis and Carson: “A fourth Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, who is white, backed up his colleagues, telling the Hendersonville (N.C.) Times-News that he heard the slurs.”
I ignored Washington’s citation of Shuler as a red herring. Even Washington could not conceal the lack of video or audio evidence to support the congressmen’s story. Now comes James Taranto to report that Washington got it wrong regarding the witness. According to the spokesman contacted by Taranto in Shuler’s office, Shuler did not accompany Cleaver et al. on March 20 and did not hear the “N-word.”
Washington’s AP analysis made much of “the wrong video” being used to question the claims of the three congressmen. But no video supports the congressmen; all videos of the Obamacare protesters on Capitol Hill on March 20 show participants attacking the legislation as the congressmen walked through the crowd. In that sense, at least, there is no “wrong video.”
Washington himself, however, cites “the wrong witness” to support the congressmen. There is no witness to support their story. In citing “the wrong witness” in a story weirdly focused on “the wrong video,” the AP has introduced an element of comic relief into our miniseries on the Democrats’ malicious attempt to tar the grassroots opposition to Obama as racist.
Via Instapundit/The Blog/Big Journalism.