The matter still comes up from time to time, in the comments sections, so it’s worth noting that the New York Times has finally (quietly) admitted the truth about the core example of that supposed Tea Party racism:

The Political Times column last Sunday, about a generational divide over racial attitudes, erroneously linked one example of a racially charged statement to the Tea Party movement. While Tea Party supporters have been connected to a number of such statements, there is no evidence that epithets reportedly directed in March at Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, outside the Capitol, came from Tea Party members.

That’s not the entire story. There’s actually no evidence that those “reported epithets” were made at all. The Times is sly about leaving room for the faithful to continue to believe, but that’s in keeping with the strategy of slandering a mass movement that the media elite despises and looking for evidence later.