Over at The Hill, this morning, there's a report by Alexander Bolton on how Democratic protesters are going all tea party. A photo tops the article. It shows a furious middle-aged man with grey hair and t-shirt fist raised high, shouting and gesturing menacingly. Wow! It's come to that in Wisconsin, I thought. A teeny-weeny caption underneath the photo tells us, though, that this was a tea party protester in 2009.
How will the media (and the right) handle Democrats who are finally doing what they're supposed to do after years of snoozing and complaining. I don't mean you and me, of course! I mean the Democratic Party, and the Party is on suicide watch according to what the right calls "pundents."
Pundit is a word which comes from Sanskrit and means "wise counselor." It's not so much that Sarah Palin and others (who, god knows, need wise counselors but wind up with think-tank goons) misdispronounce the word. It's that they shriek like pod people at anyone who attempts to show them reality. But this time they'd be right. The Democratic Party is in bad shape. If the Democratic Party doesn't manage to commit suicide, we'll do our best to kill it ourselves.
Back to The Hill's report:
Working with labor unions and liberal groups, they are using the Presidents Day congressional recess to organize a public backlash against billions of dollars in cuts to federal programs. One labor organizer said that members have been urged to attend congressional town hall meetings to ask Republican lawmakers “pointed questions” about the cuts they supported last week.
“We are targeting various House Republicans in town hall meetings during the recess to let them know these budget cuts are beyond the pale,” said the labor source, who added that it has been difficult to mobilize supporters to public question-and-answer sessions with lawmakers because “they’ve been pretty circumspect in giving out information about the meetings.”
All this energy isn't coming from the Democratic Party. The energy coming from Wisconsin and it's been picked up by MoveOn.
MoveOn.org has also organized a day of "speak-outs" at congressional offices around the country on Feb. 24. Activists plan to gather at district offices to show their opposition to steep federal budget cuts. ...
... MoveOn.org received an overwhelming response to a recent petition protesting GOP cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS, [MoveOn director Justin] Ruben said.
I think we're going to see plenty of scurrilous media coverage of (finally!) this burst of energy on the part of left. Are we prepared to beat it back? Because until we pull the plug on the media's right, we're only whispering at best.
