After the NCAAP adopted a resolution this week calling on the so-called Tea Party to quit giving aid and comfort to racists and hate groups, Sarah Palin immediately came to the defense of the movement. Bigots? What bigots?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/07/naacp-tea-party-sarah-palin.html

I am not surprised by Palin’s reaction. As Mayor of a town in which only one resident in 50 was a person of color and serving as Governor of a state with an African American population of less than four percent, she probably believes that a single black face in a crowd of a thousand represents diversity. 

The former Vice Presidential candidate obviously closes her eyes when racially charged placards are displayed. And since her reading is limited to glamour magazines and comic strips, she failed to see the Iowa tea partiers hate filled billboard showing President Obama flanked by Hitler and Lenin. But give the woman credit. She has pyschic powers. Although Palin was not present at the Washington rally when racial epithets were hurled at Congressman John Lewis, she labeled him a liar for making such a claim. Given Lewis standing as one of the most respected civil rights leaders in the nation’s history, I will take his word over the denials of a bunch of redneck bigots.

Anyway, today something new. Following the lead of television, I will occasionally post reruns of previous missives that remain relevant to recent events. I begin with a slightly edited February post titled, The Tea Party Klan…Oops, I Mean Clan.  

I apologize for the gaffe. My slip was intentional. Just wanted to piss off some of my right-wing relatives. I realize that Tea Partiers don’t dress in sheets and pillow cases, although a few wear the garb depicted in accounts of  the original Tea Party in  1773, when colonists in Boston revolted against British imposed taxes. Also let me quickly clarify that Tea Partiers don’t hang people. They only hang signs portraying President Obama as a modern day Hitler, complete with a mustache. 

Fortunately, the placards were not on display during a Tea Party convention at Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee. Nor were any black faces on display. At least as far as I could tell from watching CNN (I know, my former employer is supposed to be a liberal media outlet and would not show African-Americans, even if they were in attendance). It seems, however, that GOP National Chairman Michael Steele would have agreed to be a token black in a sea of white voters, who generally pull the Republican lever. But he had a “conflict.”

I recognize that most tea partiers are not blatant racists. But the movement has attracted a fringe element that undermines civility. Protest groups are a vital part of our nation’s history. They most often gain momentum when the country is in the throes of change and hard times. Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee by a small group of defeated Confederate soldiers, and subsequently became a force to deal with politically. Membership peaked at five-million. And despite a murderous and dispicable history, it had sufficient influence to force the 1924 Democratic Presidential Convention to abandon a party plank outlawing the KKK. Today, there are still hate-filled Klan lunatics who wrap themselves in sheets and scream epithets at blacks and other minorities. But the violence has subsided and the Klan’s main role is wearing regalia that amuses those of us with perverted senses of humor. 

More enduring from the standpoint of historial impact on the country is the Share Our Wealth Society, which was founded in 1934 during the depression era by the “Kingfish”—Huey P. Long. Prior to his assassination in 1935, he simultaneously served as U.S. Senator and Louisiana Governor. Relying on national radio broadcasts and a motto, Every Man a King, Long developed a following so large that historians credit him with forcing FDR to expand New Deal proposals out of fear that the Kingfish would  become a third-party candidate in 1936 Presidential election, thus handing over the White House to the GOP. In more contemporary times, off-brand populist movements have also played a role in shaping politics.

As CNN’s senior investigative correspondent in 1992, I was assigned to dig  into the background of Ross Perot—the declared, then undeclared and finally re-declared independent Presidential candidate. His rehearsed sound-bites garnered him eighteen percent of the vote. And according to many experts, cost George Herbert Bush a second term. The results of the election prompted Perot to create Reform Party USA. Its greatest success was electing Jesse Ventura as Governor of Minnesota in 1998.

By the time the party was formed, voters had already tired of Ross Perot’s repetitive blabbing. And I can understand why. In 1992, I spent a miserable hour with the little barking lap dog while gathering material for a segment that aired as part of  a CNN series titled, Democracy in America. In my on-camera interview with Perot, several questions deviated from his tightly scripted message. However, the questions were well-researched and considerably more substantive than Katie Couric asking Sara Palin what newspapers she read.

I thought Perot was going to throw me out of his office when I pointed out the many contradictions in his  manufactured myth of being horseback riding paperboy, who grew up to become a billionaire heroically rescuing his employees from an Iranian prison. Still, Perot was far more coherent than Sarah Palin. Ross could even put a noun, verb and object in a sentence.

Is Palin an inarticulate Perot? Darned if I know. Golly, gee, she just confuses the heck out of me. But there was a woman speaking at the Tea Party convention who claimed to be Sarah Palin. However, it could have been Tina Fey doing her dead-on Saturday Night Live impression.

Sarah Palin reportedly asked for $100,000 to appear at the convention. Goodness gracious alive, that sure is a lot of money. I worry, I mean really, really, really worry that maybe Tina Fey was sub-contracted for $75,000, allowing Ms. Palin to pocket the remainder and spend the weekend in Alaska shooting moose.

Bizarre speculation. But not as bizarre as some of things I hear coming out of the mouths of Tea Party folks—such as questions about President Obama’s birthplace. Aside from the lunatics, I hope the Tea Party anger is being directed at both sides of the aisle. There are plenty of targets in Congress, regardless of  political persuation. Everybody I know, left, right and in the middle agrees with Tea Partiers that partisan gridlock must end.

And I know for certain that tea partiers did not exclude blacks from its convention in Nashville. Reliable sources have told me that several African-Americans were allowed to serve food and clean-up after the meals.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.

Long ago when I held the important sounding title of CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent, I had encounters of the painful kind with squirrely billionaire, Ross Perot. Incidentally, “Senior” attached to a network reporter’s name is the last title before being referred to as “former,” although that designation was a a few years in my future. In 1992, meantime, I was assigned to dig into Perot’s mythical background as part of a series of documentaries called, Democracy in America. Each of the one-hour programs focused on a single candidate.

As I relate in Odyssey of a Dereleict Gunslinger, I didn’t know a helluva lot about Perot, other than he was rich, outspoken and allegedly had assembled a team to rescue two of his employees imprisoned in Tehran—a far-fetched tale that was the subject of a best selling book and a movie.

The plain-spoken Texan―journalists are required to describe all Texans as plain-spoken, even if they are mute―announced his candidacy February 20, 1992, on the Larry King show. The program was a favorite venting venue for Perot’s grandiose claims. Most went unchallenged. During this appearance, he told Larry that he had heard the cry of American masses demanding a leader of his skills. He wouldn’t just “tinker with the engine” under the hood, he would fix the thing altogether.

To ensure that Perot heard fellow citizens correctly, a 1-800 number was flashed on the screen for people to register their support. The next day, he claimed that telephone lines were jammed by thousands of calls begging him to rescue the nation in the same manner he saved his jailed employees in Tehran. Perot’s response was to establish the Reform Party. In some ways, it was the face of angry white men. White women, too.

I missed the Larry King interview. And so did Bill Smee, the producer assigned to work with me on the project. The young Yale graduate was among the first people hired for out investigative reporting unit three years before.  Bill and I watched a videotape in awe. Afterwards, we were ready to rush to the ballot box and cast our votes for Perot. He sounded great. But as we soon learned, Perot’s shtick on the Larry King show was pretty much the full range of his political acumen. He accused other candidates of speaking in sound bites, while doing nothing but.

The Rand Paul phenomenon brings back memories of Perot since there seems to be less there than meets the eye. Following a victory in Kentucky last week as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by former major league pitcher Jim Bunning, Paul has begun lurching through a series of gaffes. The darling of Tea partiers first got caught up in a controversy over his comments about civil rights. He then made a foot in the mouth remark that the Obama Administration should ease up its criticism of BP’s clean-up efforts following the massive Gulf oil spill off the Louisiana coast. When Paul became a target of editorialists and media pundits, he cancelled an appearance on Meet the Press, bemoaning the fact that he has not been given a ”honeymoon” from scrutiny.

Before he self-destructs, Paul should review the trials and tribulations of Ross Perot. He also sought exemption from the kind media examination that sometimes discovers warts. After uncovering numerous inconsistencies in the carefully constructed Perot myth, I found out that he did not like to be challenged. My one-hour interview with him was, perhaps, the strangest with a candidate of my career. He answered questions with metaphors.

“If you really want to know, rather than just throw dust in the air like gorillas do when they fight, go over to EDS (his company)…..” The simian metaphor was followed by a lesser creature. “You’re off on an absolute rabbit chase is where you are, but you love being there. So, I’ve got to bring you back to reality.” Then he visited the insect kingdom. “All you want to do is find, if it’s at all possible, to find one mosquito somewhere. Well, there are no mosquitoes.”

It is no wonder that I felt a sense of déjà-vu sixteen years later when Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin promised to get back to Katie Couric with answers to rather simple questions. I believe my Perot interview was his last with an investigative reporter. Better to have Larry King posing questions. Anyway, bizarre begot bizarre. He temporarilydropped out of the race, only to return a few weeks later to the anthem of Patsy Cline’s hit song, Crazy. Perot received eighteen percent of the votes from a demographic very similar to the tea partiers—white, middle-aged to elderly, and unhappy with Washington. 

Many political experts credit Perot’s candidacy with splitting the votes and electing Bill Clinton over George Herbert Bush. As a non-political expert, I credit Jennifer Flowers. Clinton was a relatively anonymous Arkansas Governor until he appeared on 60 Minutes with his adoring wife, Hillary, to deny an affair with the Little Rock chippie.

Also of great political value was the theme devised by Clinton campaign manager James Carville. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Many of the same economic conditions exist today. Tea partiers have rallied voters, who live in fear of the future. The overall national impact is yet to be measured. No doubt, the rhetoric of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and the stable of Fox “News” fear-mongers has created an illusion of a large constituency of anti-incumbent voters. But what is the staying power of the insurgent candidates. And how often, will they stumble.

David Brooks, the Republican New York Times op-ed columnist, recently wrote an insightful column on the mood of the voters. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/opinion/21brooks.html?ref=opinion

For me, the Brooks column is a reminder of the folks I encountered during the Ross Perot adventure. A slightly younger generation of Perot-like people are now making their voices heard. At the same time, the candidates catering to this segment of the electorate are faced with the dilemma of moderating their voices to avoid be heard making dumb statments.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.