9.11.2010

Koran-tearing wacko Andrew Beacham calls himself Tea Party leader; biased, incompetent MSM repeat claims without basic fact-checking

PR Newswire:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following was released today by Andrew Beacham, Tea Party leader from Indiana:

"I fear God alone; I will not live in fear of Islam, and I will not deny the gospel. I will preach the Christian faith - that Jesus Christ is Lord, Priest, King, and Prophet - and that Muhammad is a false prophet. Beyond that, I will not allow the oppressive teachings of Muhammad and the tyranny of Sharia law to remain unchallenged." Andrew Beacham, Tea Party leader from Indiana.

For immediate release: A Large group of Tea Party and Religious rights activists will gather in front of the White House to tear out egregious passages from the Quran that call for violence against Christians and Jews.

The claim that this guy is a Tea Party leader was credulously reported as fact by Agence France-Presse, Yahoo! News, Google News, the Times of India, and CNBC.

Here is the web site of Tea Party Patriots Indiana in which you will find contact information for its leaders. You won't find "Andrew Beacham" among them.

Andrew Beacham is a follower of anti-abortion extremist Randall Terry, and both of them are publicity hounds trying to claim the mantle of the Tea Party to get some media attention. The Washington Independent:
Andrew Beacham, a young, bearded activist who has been ejected from four of President Obama’s speeches–including his University of Notre Dame commencement speech and a health care event in Maryland–was just as adamant. He came into Terry’s fold after a disappointing stint as a Republican activist and a Tea Party organizer in Indiana. Suiting up and heckling the president of the United States, he said, made him aware of how “in history, there are always people who are willing to step up and be the tip of the spear.” Shouting down the president of the United States is more effective than nearly any form of public protest, said Beacham, especially when the president is hesitant about how to respond.

Sounds to me like the Indiana Tea Partiers ran this wacko out of town.

But far be it from the MSM to do any fact-checking when they get the opportunity to smear the Tea Party!

UPDATE: San Diego Tea Party organizer Dawn Wildman confirms:
“As a Tea Party Patriots coordinator, I have talked often with the organizers in Indiana. This man is not one of the people I recognize, nor am I aware of his participation in any official Tea Party events before. He sounds like a fringe type who is using the hard-won relevance of the Tea Parties to give him self credibility. If the media really does its job, it will discover he has none — Tea Party Patriots would never condone an act of desecration for any reason.”

And our friend Left Coast Rebel has much, much, more.

15 comments:

SarahB said...

Thank you for posting...this guy is a nutter and possibly a plant. sharing.

Left Coast Rebel said...

got you linked, let me know what else you can find

zeke said...

If only the Tea Party would disavow Sarah Palin ties...then it might really save its cred.

W.C. Varones said...

We already did that, Zeke.

SarahB said...

Zeke, most of us in the Tea Party Patriots community have disavowed Sarah Palin as a "leader." But we can't stop the fraudulent profiteers at the Tea Party Express from corrupting the name of the tea party with their actions and proclamations.

PhilB said...

W.C. Varones said the Tea Party has disavowed ties with Sarah Palin.....I am a Tea Partier from its inception and I wasn't aware the Tea Party was an organization. How are you able to disavow Sarah Palin, you didn't get my vote?

Anonymous said...

A few things the writer is missing. This person had the money to transport his little group to Washington DC, and had the money to buy a PR News Release distribution, which is NOT CHEAP, and not some low level release, but a wide distribution release which is expensive. This is not just some random person. Somebody gave him the money for all of this.

Anonymous said...

The PR News-Release alone probably cost at least $1,000 - for baseline US it is $715 (before tax, $200 membership, etc.) - then for international - it is a good $400 per country, or a minimum of $4400.

This was covered in Times of India, etc., with VERY LITTLE notice, so you know there probably was some international distribution of the PR News-Release.

This is not just a few guys that drove into DC for the today. Very few people have a couple spare thousand dollars to throw around for the heck of it.

W.C. Varones said...

I guess it's possible that some deep-pocket Democrat put them up to it, but just because they're wackos doesn't mean they can't scrape together a few thousand dollars of their own.

The God Hates Fags wackos have been running around the country making headlines for years.

Anonymous said...

W.C. Varones - I understand how you feel in seeking to defend the Tea Party and blame the funding of Beachem on Democrats or "whackos." But the reality of what I am seeing around the nation, in California, in Tennessee, is very different. This is an issue the right and the Tea Party is going to have to address. It keeps wanting to "look the other way," but that is increasingly not working. At some point, someone is going to connect the dots in a way these groups don't want. It would make sense for groups like FreedomWorks, etc., to make their own statement in advance.

wcv said...

Anon,

That's absurd. Why would FreedomWorks or Tea Party Express fund these nuts?

I still think the most likely thing is these guys scraped together a little money themselves. But if any deep-pocket organization funded them, it's obviously someone on the left trying to sling mud at the Tea Parties.

Anonymous said...

I never said FreedomWorks was funding Beacham. But someone was.


According to TeaParty.org, Andrew Beacham is listed as an "event coordinator" for the Indiana Tea Party in Elkhart, Indiana. He has been described by multiple local Indiana media as a Tea Party event "organizer," and he has been described as a speaker at Indiana Tea Party events on website of the Indiana Elkhart County Patriots Tea Party group. On his Twitter account, he has long described himself as a Tea Party organizer, and on his Facebook account, along with his support for numerous Tea Party groups (that such groups justify to demonstrate their national reach), he also supports anti-Islamic activist Geert Wilders. I believe that embarrassed Tea Party activists should disagree with his views, rather than seek to state that Andrew Beacham somehow does not represent the leaderless, decentralized "Tea Party movement."

http://www.teaparty.org/indianateaparty.html
http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/41868502.html
http://goshennews.com/local/x395831837/-Tea-party-on-tap-for-Saturday
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=59029594723
http://twitter.com/abeacham

Nor is this only situation. I could list case after case. The Tea Party silence on the extreme anti-Islam movement is a big mistake. The silence is being taken by too many to be tacit acceptance, by not condemning Tea Party activists doing this.

It would be no trouble for FreedomWorks to issue a press release disavowing Beacham's actions. But that doesn't happen, hasn't happened, and won't happen. And not just in this case. Why not? It is a big mistake.

You can't have it both ways - say a decentralized public represents the Tea Party, until you don't like what they do. You can't say someone who spreads extreme anti-Islam hate doesn't represent the Tea Party, when the Tea Party doesn't disavow their actions, just their membership.

As someone who has repeatedly published statements that have defended Tea Party activists against claims of racism, I am saying you have to do the same thing here. This is not something you can "waffle" by just talking about the "membership" or "leadership" status of a Tea Party activist. Ignoring the real issue just makes Beacham and others like that more credible as representing Tea Party views.

W.C. Varones said...

Anon,

The Tea Party leaders I know, including local San Diego leaders and national Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler, think we did a pretty good job disowning Beacham on the blogs.

Google his name and many of the first page hits will be Tea Party blogs denouncing him.

We are a true grassroots movement and we don't have the resources to put out a high-end press release every time some wacko does something obnoxious. Plus we don't want to raise that nut's profile by adding fuel to the fire.

As for FreedomWorks, I can't speak for them but they probably don't want to give this nut any more attention than he deserves either.

Anonymous said...

You already got my point - disowning someone as a "member" and disowning their actions and hatred are two different things. The really troubling issue is why the Tea Party activist can't make simple statements about this. That should trouble a lot of Tea Party supporters.

W.C. Varones said...

Dude,

I don't know how we can be any more clear. The guy is a wacko and his actions are offensive.

The guy was also a Republican activist. Why don't you go ask the RNC and the NRCC to denounce him?

Happy Super Tuesday!