TPMMuckraker's Zachary Roth reported that Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams, a frequent guest on cable news, “derided Barack Obama as 'our half white, racist president' in an email to colleagues.” Williams “sent an email in September -- obtained by TPMmuckraker -- to other leaders of the group, in which he appeared to be responding to charges of racism against himself.” From Williams' email:
CNN went over more than seven thousand articles on my site; likely they also listened to the shows archived there too. No doubt they did a Lexis Nexis on me and found thirty years of work by and about me. The best that they could do as a result was string together three quotes, out of context, and throw in a false allegation of me calling Obama a “Nazi”.
I was in the streets marching for civil rights while asshole southern sheriffs were swinging nail studded baseball bats at black's heads, and stood between black kids and even more fucked up northern assholes were throwing rocks and gas bombs at school buses in my hometown during forced busing for deseg.
Two things you can always count on: I will defend my record on race to no one (sic), under any circumstances and, I will call out any racist, any time without regard to who they are ... and that includes our half white, racist president.
While Williams claims that CNN threw “in a false allegation of me calling Obama a 'Nazi,'” Williams' website lists “President-elect Hussein Soetoro” under “21st Century Nazis.” A screenshot of his website, accessed on February 23:
Media Matters for America also documented that Williams has advanced the discredited smear that Obama lacks a valid birth certificate; linked Obama's health care reform to Nazi experiments; called Obama the “Racist in Chief”; and repeatedly called his political opponents “faggot.”