An article in today's NYT covers the protests held yesterday in DC to oppose the Obama administration and government at large. Jeff Zeleny's piece, Thousands Attend Broad Protest of Government, wavers between exposing the disgusting aspects of the protests and calmly disarming the teabaggers with pats on the head: "While there was no shortage of vitriol among protesters, there was also an air of festivity"; "...still many demonstrators expressed their views without a hint of rage." The paragraph following the latter quote starts with a benign, blithe quote that illustrates the protesters' passivity, "'I want Congress to be afraid.'" Another example in the same story told of costumed teabaggers that donned Revolutionary era garb "calling for revolution." Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Glenn Beck's 912 Project publicized the gathering and trumped the number of people that came out to listen to speakers and blast the president with cries of "liar, liar, liar"--voicing the refrain made popular after Joe Wilson's insulting heckle to President Obama during the health care speech.
I find the comparisons and likenesses of Obama and Hitler particularly odious. However, folks on the left weren't above trotting out the same analogy with Bush, so I am reluctant to categorically admonish the teabaggers as aberrants that crossed an uncrossable line. However, to treat the demonstrators as happy-go-lucky folks who dispense homespun, folksy wisdom in a peaceful fashion waters down their negative potential. A wealth of evidence from gun-toting protesters, racist signs, and those advocating bloody revolution doesn't paint a sunny picture. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols--my neighbor to the south at the Supermax in Florence--demonstrated how a small cell of radicals can perpetrate a massive crime that murders innocents in the name of freedom and fear of the government.
Nothing will, hopefully, come of this outburst of hysteria and this trend will fizzle as the economy rebounds and people (in and out of government) accept Obama's presidency. Wilson's scream prompted Maureen Dowd to acknowledge the root cause and settle on a disappointing truth: "some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it." Although Dowd targets the fine track record of South Carolinians of late, her comments extend to cover some of those in the teabagger movement and the GOP who seem content to fan the flames for political gain.In case you want more photos to sate your desires, here's a flickr page that features a hall of shame and several other appropriately named galleries. You won't be disappointed with gems such as these:
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