Leading Tea Partier Martin Williams labeled President Obama a "half-white" racist in an email to other Tea Party Express leaders unearthed by TPM. Williams appears to be responding to accusations of racism himself in the email, which refers to a CNN interview in which Anderson Cooper made "false allegations" that he had called Obama a Nazi.
In the email, Williams claims to have a strong civil rights record and, apparently jumbling his words, writes: "I will defend my record on race to no one under any circumstances." Williams' Tea Party Express branch has been slammed as "astroturf" by other factions of the movement. "Williams is not someone I would want being my spokesman," a leader of the Tea Party Patriots wrote to the Huffington Post. "He comes off as an arrogant, self promoting, egotistical jerk." (More Mark Williams stories.)