Glenn Beck Claims Homophobic Slur From Tea Party Protester “Didn't Happen”

New rule for bigoted slurs: If Glenn Beck didn't see it, it never happened.

During the Tea Party protests on Capitol Hill over health-care reform, several Democratic Representatives had to pass through a crowd of protesters to get between different buildings. TPM reporter Brian Beutler reported:

Early this afternoon, standing outside a Democratic whip meeting in the Longworth House office building, I watched Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) make his way out the door, en route to the neighboring Rayburn building. As he rounded the corner toward the exit, wading through a huge crowd of tea partiers and other health care protesters, an elderly white man screamed “Barney, you faggot”--a line that caused dozens of his confederates to erupt in laughter.

After that incident, Capitol police threatened to expel the protesters from the building, but were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed. Tea party protesters equipped with high-end video cameras were summoned to film the encounter and the officers ultimately relented.

According to Beck, this is a “lie.” After a long-winded rant about conservative victimization for sometimes being accused to racism, Beck said today:

And for the one thousandth time, no one called John Lewis the n-word. No one called Barney Frank the f-word. It didn't happen. Stop the lies.

Then again, it's not a far leap for Beck to go from trying to clear the record of things he actually said to denying first-hand accounts of hateful things Tea Party protesters have said.