That would be me, apparently.
At the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference, Kate Zernike of the New York Times accused yours truly of channeling a “Chris Rock” voice. Yes, Chris Rock. Zernike’s imagination continued to get the best of her, accusing me of “racial tones” and “racial stereotypes” for trying to talk, um, “black” on a panel about engaging America’s youth.
I kid you not.
The reality is that I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and my alleged “Chris Rock” impersonation was … my New York accent. An accent, incidentally, that should be discernible by an individual who works for a New York publication.
I mention this scenario not because it’s still to this date the only time I’ve ever been compared with Chris Rock (it has), but because Andrew Breitbart catalogs this attempted character assassination by the New York Times in his brand-new book, Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World, to underscore the media’s malicious use of the race card as an attempt to intimidate conservatives into silence.
Upon hearing about the incident, Breitbart singled out the “reporter” at a CPAC reception.
“Kate Zernike of the New York Times, are you in the room?” he asked. After seeing that she was, in fact, in the room, he said, “You’re despicable. You’re a despicable human being.”
When we sat down with Breitbart, he recounted this manufactured smear against me while also scolding the media for their obsession with race. “They’re like a cat in heat with the accusations of racism,” he told us.
Watch Part Two of our interview below. Oh, and by the way, I sound nothing like Chris Rock. Judge for yourself—my CPAC speech is here.
