Back in February, there was a brief to-do when it was claimed that the KKK had endorsed Barack Obama for President. The "story" fell apart when it was shown that the source was the Daily Squib, a satirical UK faux news source with a mission (and a credibility) somewhere between the National Enquirer and The Onion.
Then yesterday, a video popped up on YouTube which purports to show a Ku Klux Klan spokesman endorsing John McCain for President. Is it a fake? A fraud? A hoax? Take a look:
Surprisingly, this might not be a hoax at all. There are a number of lines of evidence that suggest that this video could be the real deal.
First of all, note the secrecy. The spokesman in the video keeps his face in the shadows, and does not tell us his name, position, location, or title. The only thing that suggests that this really is a KKK spokesman is the title of the video itself, which is provided by the person posting the video, someone who calls himself "DIRECTIVE51". Usually, secrecy is a red-flag for fraud or forgery. But the KKK has such a bad reputation that some parts of it are obsessively secretive.
Note that DIRECTIVE51 uses the KKK logo as his avatar. Also note that after a year of membership, this is the very first vid posted by DIRECTIVE51. So if this was a one-shot hoax job, it was at least a year in the making. The poster's name probably refers to to National Security Presidential Directive 51, which has been diaried here on Kos already. It's a big-government power grab that only a neocon could love.
The KKK is not a single organization. It's a multi-headed hydra, each with its own quirks and emphases. Some, like The Knights Party, are fairly open about who they are. But one branch in particular is quite secretive about their names and membership: that's the Imperial Klans of America, or IKA.
For example, the organization's Virginia Grand Dragon, and perhaps its membership director, is listed only as "Jim B." And if you go down the list of state chapters, you will not find a single name in any email or post-office box address. (In fact, out of 15 state chapters you will find only three actual post office box addresses: one in Kentucky, one in Tennessee, and one in Texas. Could this entire "organization" be made up of just three people? Or maybe four, since Jim B. of the Virginia chapter apparently does not have a chapter which he is Grand Dragon of.)
In fact, there is only one single name of a real person currently in the oganization that you will find on the entire site: Ronald Edwards, Imperial Wizard, who took over in 1996.
So let's compare the (slightly enhanced) shadowy person in the McCain endorsement video to the real Ronald Edwards:
Both of these guys are white, heavyset but not obese, with short-cropped hair, wearing rectangular plastic-rimmed sunglasses, and with heads shaped about the same. Hmmmmm.
Other interesting things to note: the guy in the video owns, or has access to, KKK robes with three (maybe four?) stripes on the sleeve. I'm no expert on KKK iconography, but note that the video itself has several clips from KKK rallies of the past, and the most highly decorated uniforms have three or four stripes on the sleeve.
And finally, the guy in the video owns, or has access to, a flag with the KKK logo on it. Not something the average joe has hanging around the garage.