Washington Post Crawls Out From Under the Rock to Knock Perry

Yesterday the Post had a long article on, seriously, a rock at a hunting camp that Rick Perry's father rented in Texas.  Apparently the rock, about 3 by 5 ft,  had the word "Niggerhead" written on it since time out of mind, and the word was widely used to refer to the parcel of land.  As the Post itself points out, when Rick Perry first saw the rock, in the 80's he told his father, who had the rock painted over.

“When my Dad joined the lease in 1983, he took the first opportunity he had to paint over the offensive word on the rock during the 4th of July holiday,” Perry said in his initial response. “It is my understanding that the rock was eventually turned over to further obscure what was originally written on it.”

Upon being grilled about the rock...

“My mother and father went to the lease and painted the rock in either 1983 or 1984,” Perry wrote. “This occurred after I paid a visit to the property with a friend and saw the rock with the offensive word. After my visit I called my folks and mentioned it to them, and they painted it over during their next visit.”

The Post apparently sent a major research team to search out this important story and found as many as seven people, only one of whom is named, who claimed to have seen the word on the rock in question, as recently as 2008.

Perry’s version of events differs in many respects from the recollections of seven people, interviewed by The Washington Post, who spoke in detail of their memories of seeing the rock with the name at various points during the years that Perry was associated with the property through his father, partners or his signature on a lease.

Not content to merely accuse Perry of being insufficiently race sensitive as to not spend all his time keeping the rock painted, the Post goes on to grievance monger regarding race relations in Texas in general and Perry's native Haskell County and "The Rock's" Throckmorton County:

Throckmorton County, where the hunting camp is located, was for years considered a virtual no-go zone for blacks because of old stories about the lynching of a black man there, locals said. The 1950 Census listed one black resident in Throckmorton County out of a population of about 3,600. In 1960, there were four; in 1970, two; in 1980, none. The 2010 Census shows 11 black residents.

Mae Lou Yeldell, who is black and has lived in Haskell County for 70 years, recalled a gas station refusing to sell her father fuel when he drove the family through Throckmorton in the 1950s. She said it was not uncommon in the 1950s and ’60s for whites to greet blacks with, “Morning, nigger!”

“I heard that so much it’s like a broken record,” said Yeldell, who had never heard of the hunting spot by the river.

Let's in the 50's Rick Perry would have been how old?  10 at most.  That's quite an indictment. Was it Rick Perry who greeted this woman?  Well, not that we hear.  Finding this woman alone probably cost the research team 10 man PC person days.

The article concludes:

As recently as this summer, the rock was still there, according to photographs viewed by The Washington Post.

In the photos, it was to the left of the gate. It was laid down flat. The exposed face was brushed clean of dirt. White paint, dried drippings visible, covered a word across the surface. An N and two G’s were faintly visible.

Today, the post follows up with a new story about "The Rock", and how it is causing him to go on the defensive in the presidential campaign.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential campaign spent Sunday deflecting scrutiny of a report in The Washington Post detailing a West Texas hunting camp he once leased with his father that includes a racial epithet in its name...One of Perry’s rivals for the GOP nomination, former Godfather’s Pizza executive Herman Cain, criticized Perry in appearances on “Fox News Sunday” and ABC’s “This Week” as tolerating the sign on a property he used. Civil rights activist Al Sharpton called for Perry to explain more fully his relationship to the property or bow out of the presidential race.

I have to say, this is the first strong negative reaction the Cain has garnered from me.  He should recognize this as a dirty political hit from the other side, and either ignore it, or congratulate Perry for taking the actions he did, as opposed to jumping on the Post's bandwagon.

A few comments I've heard in the blogosphere.  First, the entire media ignores Obama spending 20 years in the pews at Rev. Wright's church listening to his anti-white racial screeds as much as they could.  Obama denied even hearing them, and certainly never said that he tried to persuade Wright to talk in a less racist manner. Second, absolutely no mention by the Post that all this occurred during a period when Perry was a Democrat.

UPDATE: "Washington Post editor goes hunting up at 'Redskinsrock.'"