Boyles continued to spread falsehoods about Tancredo controversy over League of the South

KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles continued to insist on his previous falsehood that the South Carolina League of the South was not part of the audience for a speech by Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo on September 9 at the South Carolina State Museum. Boyles attacked Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer for a September 17 column that noted, “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South.” Boyles claimed it “isn't true” that League of the South members attended the speech, even though a leader of the group reportedly told the Post members of his group were there.

On September 18, KHOW-AM host Peter Boyles repeatedly insisted upon his previous falsehood that the South Carolina League of the South was not part of the audience for a speech by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) on September 9 at the South Carolina State Museum. Boyles attacked Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer for a September 17 column that noted, “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South, a secessionist organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a bigoted hate group. The league now embraces Tancredo's stands on illegal immigration.” Boyles claimed it “isn't true” that League of the South members attended the speech, even though a leader of the group reportedly told the Post members of his group were there.

On September 19, Boyles repeated another of his previous falsehoods about the incident, this time denying that the South Carolina League of the South posted an invitation to the speech on its website. After a caller noted the invitation -- which still was available on the league's website during Boyle's September 19 show -- declared that “Congressman Tancredo will be our guest” at the museum event, Boyles responded that the league has “now said they never said that.”

In a September 11 article, apparently based in part on the South Carolina chapter of the League of the South's website claim that Tancredo “will be our guest,” the SPLC wrote that the league “hosted [the] barbeque in honor of Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.” But The Denver Post reported September 13 that the South Carolina Chapter of the League of the South “falsely claimed to have sponsored the event,” and the Rocky Mountain News reported that the chapter has since acknowledged that it did not organize the event.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, the event was a fundraiser for the conservative Americans Have Had Enough Coalition. Describing the fundraiser, the News reported September 13 that “Tancredo gave his standard immigration stump speech” and that "[t]here were Confederate flags in the room, and he [Tancredo] joined audience members in singing the Southern anthem Dixie." Similarly, the Post reported September 13, “The Southern Poverty Law Center went to Saturday's museum event and reported details on its website, saying Tancredo 'addressed the standing-room audience of 200 to 250 from behind a podium draped in a Confederate battle flag.' ”

As Colorado Media Matters also noted, the Post reported September 13 that the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League “consider the organization [the League of the South] a white-supremacist hate group.” The Post reported that the League of the South's South Carolina chapter is a “neo-confederate group” and that “its website advocates 'a free and independent Southern republic' and eschews racial equality.” On September 13, Boyles declared the League of the South is a “racist” organization.

During his September 18 broadcast, Boyles cited parts of Spencer's column that noted “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South.” In response, Boyles falsely claimed that “we know that the League of the South wasn't there.” In fact, a September 14 Post article reported, “About 25 members of the South Carolina League of the South, which advocates an 'independent Southern republic,' attended Tancredo's speech Saturday in Columbia, S.C., said league board member Lourie Salley.” Further, the Rocky Mountain News reported September 13 that Salley said the South Carolina League of the South “encourage[d] its members to turn out for it [Tancredo's September 9 speech at the South Carolina state museum].”

Also citing Spencer's column, Boyles said that he didn't “know about this story about the placement of the statue of Arthur Ashe, but if it is anything like the rest of what is written, it may not be true.” Boyles presumably was referring to a mention in Spencer's column of Richard Hines, who “booked the room [for Tancredo's September 9 speech at the museum] at the request of Roan Garcia-Quintana, executive director of Americans Have Had Enough Coalition.” Spencer identified Hines as the husband of an Americans Have Had Enough Coalition board member and noted that "[w]ith a small group displaying Confederate flags, Hines protested putting a statue of black tennis star Arthur Ashe on a street that, Hines wrote to the Washington Post, 'was designated as a memorial to the Confederacy and those who served her.' "

Contrary to Boyles's suggestion that the Hines story “may not be true,” a July 11, 1996, Washington Post article reported that Hines was among “two dozen protesters [who] stood quietly at the rim of the crowd, displaying Confederate flags and banners” at the unveiling of a statue of Arthur Ashe Jr. on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia on July 10. The Washington Post further reported:

“Remove this statue's weight of hate from a Confederate memorial,” one banner said. Another said the Ashe statue's placement on Monument Avenue amounted to a “Hate Crime” that defaced a Confederate memorial.

Self-employed Richard Hines, of Alexandria, contended that the Ashe monument was “placed here to debunk our heritage.”

A July 11, 1996, Associated Press article by Larry O'Dell identified Hines as member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who said "[t]he intent of the placement of the statue was to debunk our heritage" while he stood holding a Confederate battle flag at the unveiling.

On September 19, Boyles also denied that the South Carolina League of the South posted an invitation to the speech on its website -- doing so for the second time, as Colorado Media Matters has noted. After being challenged by a caller who read part of the invitation posted on South Carolina League of the South's website, Boyles insisted that the league has “now said they never said that”:

CALLER: [Starts reading] Well, “Congressman Tancredo will be our guest at the Vista Room.”

BOYLES: But again, but they have now said they never said that. And they put --

CALLER: I checked their website for the invitation.

BOYLES: I understand that. Jerry, I said it. But you know what? They're saying they did not do that.

In fact, the Post reported in its September 14 article that Salley “said his group did not sponsor the appearance, although its website said 'Congressman Tom Tancredo ... will be our guest' at the event.” Salley also said the invitation “meant Tancredo would be a guest of South Carolina,” according to the article.

From the September 18 broadcast of The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: [Reading from Jim Spencer's September 17 Post column] “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South.” Now, we know the League of the South wasn't there. We know it. And I don't know about this story about the placement of the statue of Arthur Ashe, but if it is anything like the rest of what is written, it may not be true, but let's assume for a moment that it is.

“Tancredo,” writes Spencer “wrote to a crowd that included the League of the South, a secessionist organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a bigoted hate group. The League now embraces Tancredo's stand on illegals.”

[...]

BOYLES: You knew this was coming. You knew it was coming. It was inevitable and untrue. So, this morning. I don't know how many of you know much about the Southern Poverty Law Center, but I, frankly, have had enough of them. And apparently, if what Tancredo, according to Jim Spencer and others, is guilty of, is by association. That, how dare he go someplace that he thinks is going to be a barbecue and ends up in a state-supported museum in a room that is full of Confederate relics? I am no fan of the Confederacy, but it is what it is. Also, Spencer fails to mention that the lieutenant governor of the state was there. Other groups were there. Some Democrats were there. This was all absent. But I have had enough of people using the Southern Poverty Law Center as it's -- here's the truth, people.

[...]

BOYLES: The headline is, “Tancredo sings Dixie with bigots.” Who names them bigots? The Southern Poverty Law Center. So twice in one, two, three, four short paragraphs -- five short paragraphs. The first one is the expression “You just ain't whistling Dixie.” It's amazing that these guys can do this and no one can think that they're doing something wrong.

The third, fourth paragraph: “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South,” and we know this isn't true. We know it isn't true. Because, remember, the first things written in the Rocky were that this League of the South actually put the whole thing on. “Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South, a secessionist organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a bigoted hate group. The League now embraces Tancredo's stand.”

From the September 19 broadcast of The Peter Boyles Show:

CALLER: It's, well it's, and I emailed you that question, I also emailed you where you can get Tom Tancredo's invitation, or the invitation from the Southern League.

BOYLES: I have that.

CALLER: OK. And it says they invited Tancredo there, he was their guest.

BOYLES: No, the League of the South, which really is that borderline racist organization, was not involved in this.

CALLER: [Starts reading] Well, “Congressman Tancredo will be our guest at the Vista Room.”

BOYLES: But again, but they have now said they never said that. And they put --

CALLER: I sent you the website for the invitation.

BOYLES: I understand that. Jerry, I said it. But you know what? They're saying they did not do that.

CALLER: Well then, how did it get up there?

BOYLES: I don't know. But they had nothing to do with it. It was not their meeting. They had nothing to do with the meeting. Now, that's the same thing that you're saying that I'm saying to you about. Now, wait a minute. Hang on!

CALLER: It says he'll be our guest.

BOYLES: That's exactly. No, no. I can claim that right now George Bush is my guest at the UN. What good is it?

CALLER: But he is not your guest at the UN.

BOYLES: That's right, and Tancredo was not their guest.

CALLER: Well, that's what their website said.

BOYLES: I understand --

CALLER: That's what their invitation says.

BOYLES: -- and I just told you, and I just told you my, that my guest --

CALLER: See, you can spin it any way you want to.

BOYLES: I'm not spinning it.

CALLER: The simple thing of it is--.

BOYLES: Look, if they --

CALLER: That's what the invitation says --

BOYLES: I see, so, if they claim it.

From the September 17 Denver Post column by Jim Spencer:

The expression is “You ain't just whistling Dixie.”

Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo wasn't whistling. He was singing Dixie. He was also standing in a Columbia, S.C., museum room with Confederate flags and a picture of Robert E. Lee.

[...]

Tancredo spoke to a crowd that included the League of the South, a secessionist organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a bigoted hate group. The league now embraces Tancredo's stands on illegal immigration.

[...]

I asked to speak to Tancredo about the divisive symbolism of the Confederate flag and Dixie. He chose not to talk.

First, Tancredo's spokesman said the flags were part of a museum display. After a museum spokesman said the room was empty before the speech, Tancredo's people conceded that the flags had been moved in from an adjacent room by people attending the event.

Richard Hines booked the room at the request of Roan Garcia-Quintana, executive director of Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, which sponsored Tancredo's speech and whose board includes one of Tancredo's ex-Congressional staffers. Hines, whose wife is also a coalition board member, had his lawyer e-mail me a warning not to “injure the good reputation of Mr. Hines.”

Hines took care of his reputation in July 1996 in Richmond, Va. With a small group displaying Confederate flags, Hines protested putting a statue of black tennis star Arthur Ashe on a street that, Hines wrote to the Washington Post, “was designated as a memorial to the Confederacy and those who served her. ...”

Tancredo doesn't answer for Hines' extremism. But the Colorado congressman is responsible for his own choices.

The NAACP still battles South Carolina over its display of the Confederate flag. “Their BS is that the flag reminds them of slavery,” South Carolina Council of Conservative Citizens spokesman Kyle Rogers told me. He talked about the NAACP “busing in welfare mothers to demonstrate in front of the statehouse.”