Bay Buchanan Thinks I’m Leading a Lynch Mob
I love the smell of a fresh character assassination in the morning. Especially when I’m the one accused of doing the assassinating.
According to Bay Buchanan, I’m part of the “internet lynching” of Marcus Epstein. Epstein is a former staffer and speech writer for Tom Tancredo. Tancredo was last seen making America safe from rampaging Mexican Conquistadors hell bent on invading America and working for a living. Epstein is now heavily involved with Team America PAC – which is co-chaired by Tancredo and Bay Buchanan.
Epstein is also heavily involved in making racist and offensive statements (more on that later). According to multiple reports, a couple of years ago Epstein got drunk, called a black woman a “nigger,” and karate chopped her in the head. He recently pleaded guilty to the charges.
I’m an editor for Above the Law, a website that reports legal industry news and gossip. We focus on practicing attorneys and law students. A couple of days ago, I learned about Epstein’s guilty plea. Published reports explained that Team America PAC had no intentions of firing the guy. That made sense to me – I mean, what employer would fire an employee just because he got drunk one night, dropped the N-word, and hit a woman?
But I also learned that Marcus Epstein was planning on matriculating to the University of Virginia School of Law in the fall. A kid that hit a black woman while shouting racial epithets was going to one of the most prestigious law schools in the country? Yeah, that is an Above the Law story.
I did my journalistic due diligence. I contacted other UVA Law students who were able to confirm that Epstein was at a UVA’s admitted student’s weekend. I made inquiries of law school officials. I read the plea. And then I published the story.
Clear as I can tell, that is when I took out my (silicon) rope, incited a (virtual) mob, and (metaphysically) strung Marcus Epstein up by his (un-karate-chopped) neck. Bay Buchanan writes:
[The Left] kept moving this little tidbit, watching it ricochet around their shallow world in the blogosphere, until it landed on a popular site for incoming law students. There individuals who claim they’re interested in carrying-out justice in this world saw to it that Marcus paid again for his offense. With nothing but a skeleton of a story they initiated a campaign targeted at UVA’s Admission Office. And they won — Marcus will not be attending UVA Law School in the fall.
Wait a minute, a racist jackass won’t be going to a great law school, and I’m supposed to what? Care?
Bay Buchanan makes a passionate plea against personal responsibility after the jump.
On her Team America PAC website, and on her The American Cause website (and probably on other websites that are blocked by my “dude, don’t even bother” firewall), Buchanan tells us Marcus Epstein’s sad story:
I write this story not as an excuse for Marcus’ actions. There is no excuse. Marcus would be the first to admit this, and he has, many times.
Marcus is half Jewish, and half Korean. He has a pronounced speech impediment, an exceptional mind, and a remarkable talent for writing. But it was only after this incident that I came to fully appreciate his finest qualities.
Mental note: must get drunk and slap a white woman if I want to show Bay Buchanan my finest qualities.
While his intelligence and ability were evident, Marcus had serious problems. He drank to excess and suffered periods of deep depression. One Sunday early in 2007 Marcus called and asked if he could come to my home to talk. He was afraid of what he might do if he were alone another minute.
Apparently, Epstein stayed with Buchanan for several months. But Buchanan’s (admittedly noble) efforts were no match for Epstein’s demons:
Early one Saturday evening, several months later, I received a call from a friend of Marcus’. “Marcus is in jail,” he told me. The two of them had gone to Georgetown to have a drink before joining others for dinner, he explained. When they left their drinking hole, however, Marcus was completely intoxicated, nearly incapable of walking. It was then that the incident occurred.
I love the “I was so wasted” defense; I make it to my wife every Sunday morning. Unfortunately, it’s only marginally more effective than blaming the dog (since my dog is housebroken). But the defense is especially galling when it’s made by conservatives who would otherwise be talking about “personal responsibility. “
Buchanan’s real point of contention seems to be this:
What happened next was a modern day lynching by a faceless, angry, ignorant mob who reveled in the collective assault on their victim. They had wounded an adversary and drawn blood — without pausing to ask how so talented a young man could have found himself in such a mess.
There’s an old joke that I like to use in this situation: “People call me McGregor the pig f**ker. I mow my lawn every day, but they don’t call me McGregor the lawn mower. I ride my horse every day, but they don’t call me McGregor the horse rider. You know, you f**k one pig …”
Epstein didn’t find himself in “such a mess,” he found himself shouting nigger and hitting a woman. Actions have consequences. Maybe Epstein and Bay Buchanan think that the consequences should be limited to a legal proceeding. But guess what, Epstein and Buchanan don’t get to decide what the consequences should be. That’s not how it works. People who screw up don’t get to tell the people they offend how they should be punished.
But as long as Bay Buchanan thinks that we all need more information to put Epstein’s actions in context, let’s blow the lid off and look at all the information, instead of just at the facts that are most sympathetic to her treasured assailant.
I believe that we can call Marcus Epstein a racist on the strength of this one incident – just like we can call Michael Vick a dog murderer or Ahmadinejad an anti-semite. But I understand that people sometimes need more than one obvious display of racial animus before they can wrap their mind around calling someone a racist (Sotomayor excepted, of course). Fair enough.
Luckily, with Epstein, we have years and years of writings that display his penchant for racial offense. After the story blew up, a number of publications linked to his Facebook pictures of his trip to Ethiopia (Facebook has since taken the page down, showing a “big tent” philosophy that still escapes Team America PAC). My favorite picture was one of Epstein looking at monkeys on the Ethiopian savanna. His witty photo caption? “Mixing with the locals.”
You can also take a look at Marcus Epstein.com. There, you’ll find all sorts of gems like this:
Diversity can be good in moderation—if what is being brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes, or a few Mariachi dancers—as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture.
During the presidential primaries he wrote:
Even if Obama doesn’t use race as an issue, his success has been almost solely due to the fact that he’s black.
Starting to get the picture? This guy has made a career out of pitting the so-called “dominant” white culture against everybody else. He writes as if white people are under attack. And then he went out and slapped a black woman. Does that sound like an unrepresentative drunken mishap? To me it sounds like a culmination of some deep seeded antagonism towards black people.
If anybody “lynched” Marcus Epstein, it was Bay Buchanan, Tom Tancredo, and the “faceless, angry, ignorant mob” which kept rewarding Epstein’s expressions of racial divisiveness, anger, and intolerance. They willingly fed into his “us versus them” belief structure, instead of getting a depressed, intolerant kid the help and education he needed.
Now, the kid can’t go to UVA Law School and will probably have a hard time passing the character and fitness exam to get admitted to the bar, even if he can find another law school to take him. Buchanan says that everybody deserves a second chance, but it seems to me that Epstein has had multiple chances to learn about racial tolerance in a multicultural society.
Too bad his friends didn’t notice his racist ideology until he became violent.
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It’s this kind of incident that completely rips the mask off the most rabid anti-immigration folks. They’re motivated by racism and xenophobia, pure and simple.
I just don’t understand how you can A)hire people like this B)defend people like this when they commit a violent crime motivated by racist feelings, and C) convince minorities that you don’t hate them.
Is this woman for real? For that matter, is this kid for real? I’ve often wondered what it takes to become a pet of the rabid right. Guess this is it.
I’m not sure if you can categorize a karate-chop as a “violent crime”. That might be stretching it just a bit.
I realize you’re trying to make a point, but try to stick to the facts. Yes, it does appear to be racially motivated, yes he hit a woman – I don’t believe that reaches the threshold for violent crime.
I will agree with you that the “I was drunk” defense doesn’t work. It was a stupid act and it will certainly cost him.
While Mr. Epstein doesn’t get to decide his punishment, I don’t think you or I get to make that decision either. The court will determine the appropriate consequences and Mr. Epstein will have to deal with it then.
I’m a little confused about your definition of “violent.” I don’t think that there is a “non-violent” way to commit physical assault.
I think the spirit of your argument is that my use of the word violent unnecessarily sensationalized the act. That’s a fair point and it is certainly something that I’ve been guilty of as a writer/speaker/person. But I don’t think that is the case here.
Have you ever been even slightly touched by a person while they were shouting racial epithets at you? I have. And let me tell you, from the victim’s perspective, we are talking about a violent act that matches every connotation of the word. Maybe the physicality didn’t even really hurt (as in my case), but your mind makes it so. Your mind reminds you of every story you’ve ever heard about a minority getting the crap beat out of him simply for being a minority.
I’ve been in a number of bar fights. Some of them weren’t really “violent.” But having a person lay hands on me, while saying a racial curse word, that is a top-ten terrifying moment in my life.
A drunk stranger shouts the N-word and hits you on the head? Everybody that has been through that would consider that a violent act.
In response to another comment. See in context »I think dropping the N-bomb while drunkenly karate chopping an African-American woman in the head is indefensible. So you had me right up until you began stretching events to paint Epstein as an entrenched and unrepentant racist. Your reaction to Buchanan’s attack on the anti-Epstein blogosphere carries force when you analyze the serious nature of Epstein’s action vis-a-vis the assault. But cherry picking your favorite out-of-context quotations to further demonize Epstein ultimately undermines your argument (and to an extent your credibility).
Had Epstein’s Facebook photo caption included antelope, would his “mixing with the locals” have been so racist? Decidedly not. Sometimes a photo with monkeys in Ethiopia is just a travel photo in a unique location with its own particular fauna.
Does the fact that Epstein is half Korean color his comment on diversity? If he’s not African-American, is he a racist when he comments on how he perceives a traditionally white American majority’s view on different races…such as his own? And are you similarly troubled by the strong racial overtones in your “About Me” Section?
Even the comment on Obama doesn’t strengthen your arguments against Epstein. Many political observers have commented that Obama’s unique story, in which his race plays an important role, certainly helped to get him elected.
My point is, while I agree that Epstein’s public action is sufficiently egregious to justify both your outrage and his own life-troubles, you are allowing yourself to let Bay Buchanan bait you into a position where you make nonsensical and hyperbolic allegations. You win the debate on its merits without them. Why stoop to name calling and tit-for-tat journalism?
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m not troubled by the “racial overtones” in the bio, nor am I troubled by the inflammatory things I’m sure I’ll write in the future.
But, I suppose I’m not troubled because any fair reading of my overall body of work would fairly conclusively show that I’m not a racist. And I also don’t go around hitting people and calling them names.
If I did those things, and then somebody went back and read some of my work and came to a conclusion. I’d probably forfeit my ability to be “not troubled” by such things.
In response to another comment. See in context »Elie,
A point that you touch on but don’t focus on enough, I think, is the fact that Bay Buch’s defense of Epstein is completely hypocritical. If Epstein’s name was “Leon Jenkins” and he assaulted a white woman, would Buchanan urge us all to empathize with Leon’s situation, to consider his upbringing in the projects and his struggles with substance abuse? Doubtful. She’d sooner extradite his black a** to Texas and give him an express pass to the gas chamber.
As to the consequences–of course the courts get to weigh in. But that doesn’t mean that’s the end of it. We all have the right to judge people based on their past actions and we do it every day. UVA decided that they’d rather not have a person of this quality at their law school. That’s their call and I think it was a good one.
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