House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) today criticized those who have denied that racial epithets were used during the health care reform protests last month, saying doing so “undermines the credibility of somebody who’s a denier.”
Leading up to the passage of health care reform, civil rights hero and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said that Tea Party protesters shouted “nigger” at him after a Democratic caucus meeting.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and others have recently charged that Democrats riled up the protesters, while simultaneously denying that such epithets were used.
Bachmanntold Sean Hannity on Fox News:
There were so many cameras there, Sean. No one recorded any racial motivation. And everything we’ve heard in the last week has had a racial tinge coming out of the Democrats’ mouth, and there hasn’t been racial activity.
Today, Hoyer said that “it undermines the credibility of somebody who’s a denier. People denied a lot of things happened, bad things that happened.”
He continued:
I don’t think there’s any doubt that what John Lewis said happened and what others saw and heard happen did, in fact, happen. That’s why I think the credibility of that assertion is questionable.
