Yesterday, we noted how Harry Jackson was begging Tea Party activists to get a little more media savvy and work hard to salvage the movement’s reputation in order to counter the growing impression that the movement is racist.
Would this count as a success or a failure, in that regard?
An Alabama attorney who has spoken to white supremacists who believe slavery is ordained by God withdrew Thursday from a planned appearance at a Wausau tea party rally next week after organizers questioned his views.
John Eidsmoe of Pike Road, Ala., was scheduled to speak at the April 15 event alongside Jefferson County Circuit Judge Randy Koschnick and others.
But Koschnick complained to the rally’s organizer after being presented with information about Eidsmoe’s background by The Associated Press. Wausau tea party organizer Meg Ellefson said Koschnick’s concerns were legitimate and after she called Eidsmoe on Thursday, he offered to withdraw from the rally.
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Eidsmoe has spoken before the League of the South, tagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group because it believes slavery was ordained by God. He’s also spoken at meetings of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which opposes racial integration; has compared Michael Jackson to an ape, referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity,” and says America should “remain European in character,” according to the SPLC.
“Eidsmoe doesn’t just flirt with white supremacists, he regularly speaks to them,” said SPLC research director Heidi Beirich.
I guess organizers deserve credit for dropping Eidsmoe from the event after they learned of his views … which is more than can be said of, say, Roy Moore:
Eidsmoe, a colonel in an Alabama militia, is a former law school professor and one-time legal adviser to Roy Moore, the Alabama chief justice ejected from his post for defying federal court orders to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Supreme Court rotunda. Eidsmoe works at the Foundation for Moral Law in Alabama, where Moore serves as president.
