National Tea Party Umbrella Group Says It Has 'Expelled' Mark Williams' Tea Party Express After Racist Screed. Right.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Well, now that Mark Williams dropped the mask and revealed the rotten racist core of the Tea Party movement's authoritarian base, the movement's defenders have been scrambling to distance themselves from him.

So today on Face the Nation, one of the movement's only black spokesmen -- David Webb of the National Tea Party Foundation -- and announced that Williams and his Tea Party Express have been "expelled" from their would-be umbrella organization:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, it do-- it does seem to me that-- that-- that part of what this is about is--is he’s saying to you, you really need to police your-- your organization. And that some of these signs we’ve seen them that have shown up at some of these parties really are objectionable. What are you doing about that?

DAVID WEBB: Well-- well, we have it and that’s a very good question. We, in the last twenty-four hours have expelled Tea Party Express and Mark Williams from the National Tea Party Federation because of the letter that he wrote which, he, I guess, may have considered satire but which was clearly offensive. And that is what we do--self-policing is the right and the responsibility of any movement or organization. I denounce any acts that I see many leaders do and for Mister Jealous, to say that these elements, when millions have been out there, represent the Tea Party is blatantly false and they’re simply playing the race card.

It's hard to say just how much pull the NTPF actually has. As you can see from their press release announcing their formation last April, the outfit comprises most of the movement's heavy hitters -- which included the Tea Party Express folks.

Note that Fox particularly promoted the Tea Party Express when it was organizing that bus tour in the runup to Glenn Beck's "912 March on Washington", though CNN had a hand in it too. Funny how the Williams story is getting relatively little play there, isn't it?

Fact is, the Tea Parties can't just denounce Williams and pretend that they haven't been playing the "race card" all along. And now the NAACP is playing that card -- for calling them out? Just more up-is-down Planet Bizarro garbage from these folks.