Tea Party's Broun getting a bad rap? Ann Althouse thinks so

Over at Ann Althouse's blog (her's actually has readership, but hey, mine just started yesterday afternoon), Professor Althouse (UW Law School) is dissing the leftist blogosphere for calling Rep. Broun (GA R) a callous guy.  I posted about this earlier. 

Ann's contention is that absent some undeniable proof that Rep. Broun, standing in front of his Town Hall meeting, clearly heard the complete wording of the question, "who going to shoot Obama" there is no basis for ripping on him.

Here is my problem with her logic:

1. Most people try to understand a question put to them before launching into a paragraph long answer.  Most politicians at Town Hall meetings, wanting to be liked as they presumably do, would not risk the "off-puttingness" of having a crowd of people standing in front of them thinking: "Holy shit, what was that the answer to?"

2.  If Professor Althouse went to the source of the report, an Athens, Georgia reporter, he explained that he was in the room and he didn't clearly hear the question. Therefore he called Rep Broun's spokesperson and she confirmed for the reporter that her boss had indeed heard the question and that he "considered it inappropriate."  (Geez, those words keep popping up this week.)  "Broun’s press secretary, Jessica Morris, confirmed that the question was indeed, "who is going to shoot Obama? “Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on,” she said."   Good on him!!!!

3. Because it is a federal crime, says Professor Althouse, it is less than likely that at a town hall meeting in Oglethorp County, a rural county of 12,000 people, featuring a member of the Republican Tea Party caucus, anyone could say such an outrageous thing.  Go figure.

Broun moved on without a word of objection about the question: who is going to try to assassinate the president for all of us.

I suggest that Professor Althouse is in denial about the rage of the folks who attend Tea Party Rallies. A few anecdotes:

1.      My youngest son said that as he and his friends marched around the Square at the huge protest rally last Saturday, teenagers with Walker support signs were walking against the flow of the pro-union crowd itching to stir up a fight, including frequently yelling obscenities and insults at the pro-union protestors.  He said that his reaction and those of his friends was to think: "Gee, what a douche" and just ignore them.

2.   My son also had a high school buddy who tried to film the Tea Party counter-protest from inside the Tea Party crowd, for a documentary he was hoping to put together on the protests and counterprotests.  This kid, age 14 (and looking it), was wearing pro union buttons.  He was told by a number of adults in the Tea Party crowd to “Get the Fuck out of here.”   Being a smart kid, he did.

3.   All this fabulous decorum matches some of the shouting I heard from Tea Partiers on Saturday as they left in anger past my spot (next to a police officer friend) at King and Main a good hour and a half before their rally was scheduled to end. 

4.   It also matched the racist comments and vulgar speech I heard watching the April 15 rally.  The monkeys that were tied to protest signs epitomized the spirit of that rally.  The lack of a single citation on Saturday, among a crowd of 75,000, epitomized the spirit of the anti-Bill protestors. The Tea Party movement is in my view based on manipulated anger rather than reason, but hopefully it has already passed its high water mark.  If it hasn’t, I am confident it shortly will.

5.   Talked to a nice lady after mass last Sunday at my local parish (she is Madison teacher with whom I struck up a conversation because of her MTI lapel button).  Her: "yeah, I was next to two Tea Party supporters on the Square yesterday and one said to the other: 'I was surprised there were no looters.' "  Hey, thanks, Fox News for the Fair and Balanced coverage.   She also mentioned that as a devout Catholic, she felt compelled to vote for Walker in 2010 over the abortion issue, and felt sick she had done so.  I suspect there are more than a few like her walking around the Square in opposition to the Bill.

But I digress. Back to Professor Althouse and her contention that the far left is unfairly demonizing the Tea Party movement.  Her contention in her post is that until someone comes up with a video that clearly establishes the callousness of the Georgia Tea Party Republican, he didn't do it.  The best response to this was posted to her blog by someone with the handle "law student:"   "Apparently, were it not for the Zapruder film, JFK would be alive today." 

But if you want at least a glimpse of the nature of the folks on the right that read Professor Althouse's blog, just spend a little time scanning through the comments of people that comment on her blog.  I would suggest that it won't take very careful study for you to be able to discern the right wing comments from the left wing and independent voter comments.   Then ask yourself, with whom would I rather sit down and try to solve a problem in a rational way?