Tea Party Leader Calls Obama "Half-White Racist"

Produced by HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Unit

Last September Mark Williams, a tour partner with the Tea Party Express, referred to President Obama as "our half white, racist president."

In a September email obtained by Talking Points Memo, Williams angrily responded to what he calls a "false allegation" by CNN that he called President Obama a Nazi. In an apparent attempt to demonstrate he is not racist, Williams claimed to have a strong record on civil rights. He spoke of "marching for civil rights while asshole southern sheriffs were swinging nail-studded bats at blacks's heads..."

On September 14, 2009, Mark Williams admitted to CNN's Anderson Cooper that he referred to "Mubarak Hussein Obama" as a Nazi:

COOPER: But wait Mark, you're actually the one who called President Obama Nazi.

WILLIAMS: I didn't call Barack Obama a Nazi.

COOPER: Yes, he's on your list, on your Web site of like 21st century Nazis. You have his name.

WILLIAMS: We've got the philosophy of fascism and national socialism at work here. Of course we do.

COOPER: No, no but you have the president's name, although it's a derivation that's not his actually name, it's a name it's kind of a negative.

WILLIAMS: Mubarak Hussein Obama.

COOPER: Right, that's what's you call him on your Website. You're the one who's using the term Nazi.

Tea Party Express, a series of nationwide anti-Obama bus tours, is frequently decried as "astroturf", or fake grassroots, by other aspects of the Tea Party movement, notably the Tea Party Patriots, due to its associations with Our Country Deserves Better PAC, which is run out of the Republican strategy firm Russo Marsh.

Williams acts as a spokesman for Tea Party Express.

Robin Stublen, a leader of the Tea Party Patriots, told HuffPost in an email, "Mark Williams is not someone I would want being my spokesman. He comes off as an arrogant, self promoting, egotistical jerk. In politics, people like Mark Williams are a dime a dozen, even when you factor in inflation."

Williams concluded his September email by inexplicably refusing to defend himself:

I will defend my record on race to no one (sic), under any circumstances and, I will call out any racist, any time without regard to who they are ... and that includes our half white, racist president.

Comments

[Clevelandinwi]

08:28 AM on 04/20/2010

markwilliams? Who is he? He calls the President a name? This makes him newsworthy? Why? I saw two gun-toting whachos on Hardball last night and wondered the same thing. Why are these total idiots newsworthy? Where has journalism gone? If I call the President of the United States a derogatory name, can I get on cnn? Wow! That's really something!

[RedsKid2]

10:51 AM on 03/27/2010

"half-white" racist? That's hilarious. That's gotta make life tough for Obama...hating his "half-white" self, or hating his "half-black" self...gee, which is it? The poor man must be so confused. Actually, Mark Williams is confused and doesn't even know it.

[RJ2500]

05:21 PM on 03/16/2010

Does this man wear his hood when he goes cross-burning, or does he just wear the robes?

[Greg Petty]

10:57 PM on 04/21/2010

Hope he takes that dead rat off his head before he puts his dress hood on

[Center-of-the-Bird]

01:16 AM on 03/04/2010

The Tea Party Express is not the Tea Party...
...and Mark Williams is with the Tea Party Express.

The Tea Party Express was launched by a GOP affiliated PAC "Our Country Deserves Better", who's chairman was (not sure if he still is) Howard Kaloogian.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/legendary_gop_bamboozler_hitches_wagon_to_tea_part.php#more%20GDP:%20http://www.visualeconomics.com/us-gdp-by-state/

The GOP have been working hard to co-opt The Tea Party movement and since many of the Tea Parties ideas are conservative and have been given lots of free promotion by FOX, it's easy for those of us who are not Tea Party members to tie all three groups together and condemn everyone with one wide brush.

I'm not naive, I understand the connections and the motives of all three and I also understand the Tea Party has as many "foil hats" in their group as we have in ours and there's no way of controlling a large national group of any kind, without a few crazies getting in.

It is important however for all groups to call-out those nuts and publicly chastise them, letting the rest of us know, who are not in the party, that the grownups are in charge.

[RedsKid2]

10:52 AM on 03/27/2010

A FEW crazies?? (laughing)

[Ngonyama]

07:38 AM on 02/27/2010

Did the KKK also serve tea?

[hartwilliams]

06:47 PM on 02/26/2010

Alas, he's a pal of Chris Wallace, and gets to play "pundit' on MSNBC without ever being identified as the Tea Party Express "spokesperson." (Shill)

http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/msnbc-gets-astroturfed-again/

MSNBC Gets Astroturfed Again, pairing him with former Calif. Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. So, guess who got to do all the talking?

[Turtleposer]

03:51 PM on 02/26/2010

Forgeddabout these loons - The Coffee Party is serving up sobriety

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260348091419#!/coffeeparty?ref=sgm

www.coffeepartyusa.com/

[WOODSTOCKER51]

08:38 AM on 02/26/2010

...i can see why he insulted.............after all.this guy is a "full fledged white racist"....he would know!.............lol.

[AnnC0725]

07:43 AM on 02/26/2010

Whenever the H P wants to distort something someone says....notice they dont' have the video up...too funny.

[Trisync Traveler]

11:28 PM on 02/25/2010

Man its all fck'd up. I just finished listening to a podcast of "this American Life" detailing the run up to and eventual election of Harold Washington as Chicago's first Black Mayor. It detailed how White Chicago's dyed in the wool Democrats defected en masse and voted for a "stooge" Republican because they were scared of the Black bogeyman. This TeaBagger crap is a replay. I mean these nutbags actually think that the 1/2 Gov. Palin is qualified to be President.

[NuffAlready]

01:39 PM on 02/25/2010

keep it up you hateful intolerant racists...

...and by "hateful intolerant racists", I mean you conservative hating far left liberals here on Huff.

Every move you take to marginalize the movement as whole is seen clearly for what it is. Every bit of the mocking that you enjoy so much...every character that you find saying what you believe to be silly on camera (even if he may not really represent the movement)...or any fringe protest sign which you misrepresent as the "norm" amongst thousands...

keep it up.

[thinkRegress]

01:53 PM on 02/25/2010

They're only marginalizing themselves.

[NuffAlready]

02:14 PM on 02/25/2010

see...you dont get it...

they're not marginalized at ALL...

the left is TRYING to marginalize them...many people on this site try as hard as they can...everyday...

and the left is failing miserably.

Look at whats happening around the country. Look at the rise of conservative action amongst the people. Look at the Democrat losses. Wait till Nov.

I say "keep it up"...keep trying to marginalize us all, with your insults, your hate, your intolerance, your racism, your arrogance...

[SpikeC]

03:10 PM on 02/25/2010

There is an interesting psychological trait where people attribute there own motivations to others.

[vegipasta]

01:26 PM on 02/25/2010

Well he said "half white racist" not half black so at least we know what half he is talking about.

[thinkRegress]

01:30 PM on 02/25/2010

See, he's only calling the white part of him racist, which makes the comment not racist.

[Nonpartay]

01:35 PM on 02/25/2010

The ironic part of all this is to call anyone half anything. We are all human beings. Can you separate the cream from the coffee once it's been stirred in? I don't think so! Skin color may seem like an obvious difference, but it is actually the least important difference when it comes to human traits. Genetically, we're all cousins, I don't care where we come from or what color we are. Too bad more people aren't aware of this scientifically verified fact.

[ikeyboy]

10:30 AM on 02/25/2010

And who is the racist here???? Tea Partiers are irrelevant.

[dentuso]

10:32 AM on 02/25/2010

I believe the term is Irrelephant.

[CarolinaYankee]

10:22 AM on 02/25/2010

Hope he finds out he has a Black cousin in Mississippi

[plow]

10:25 AM on 02/25/2010

Mr. Gates could probably look that up in a jiffy - that would be priceless.

[Nonpartay]

01:36 PM on 02/25/2010

Yep, and he'd probably find something, too. It doesn't take long before we find that everyone in this country is a much closer relation than any of us would probably want to be. :)

[RJ2500]

05:23 PM on 03/16/2010

Probably his sister and daughter too. That's the way the old white racists in the south do things. Just ask Strom.

[ClevelandTom]

10:19 AM on 02/25/2010

When people read or watch the history of Germany in the 1930's and 1940's they often wonder if there was something unique about the German psyche of the time that allowed them to follow the Nazi's into oblivion. They wonder that because they can't imagine it happening here in America. Of course psychologists and sociologists have shown over and over again that the phenomenon can happen anywhere under the right conditions.

I suggest that the Tea Party movement is proof positive that it can happen here. I'm not saying Tea Partiers are Nazis, but I am saying that they are very open to manipulation by others, as was the case in Germany after WWI.

[dentuso]

10:24 AM on 02/25/2010

Absolutely spot on. I sincerely don't believe that teaba ggers understand where they're being lead. They're sca red to death (because Pa Kettle told them they should be), and are absolutely prime for exploitation.

Are they brilliant? No. And for that reason I kind of empathize with them, much like I do the white-sheet wearing four-year-old kid on Jerry Springer. He honestly doesn't have a clue what he's actually doing, and is continually filled with information about the need for fear and hate.

But as long as we have Murdoch and company readily willing to have the "special class march" in return for comfort... they will.

[dentuso]

10:24 AM on 02/25/2010

sympathize.... not empathize.

(yikes!!)

[ScarlettMocha]

10:41 AM on 02/25/2010

You would be correct is assuming it is all about purity of rac e.

[thinkRegress]

11:12 AM on 02/25/2010

Really? I've never heard this topic come up at a tea party, or anything remotely close to it.