Defaming the Dissidents

Ever since protesters started showing up at town hall meetings, the left has been belittling them. First they were paid "Brooks Brothers" protesters. Then they were a threat to free exchange of ideas.

More recently the left has focused on two things. One is that several protesters carry signs calling President Obama a Nazi. This has caused an uproar from the left. "How dare you compare the President to someone so evil?"

The other thing has been that a few protesters had guns. One was carrying a gun illegally. Others were carrying legally. The left's take on this is that it is meant as intimidation. MSNBC showed one protester with an AR-15 across his back and talked about racist white militia members. The protester in question was black but they had only shown close-ups of his back so that this was not obvious.

One way to react to this is to dismiss it as simple hypocrisy. The left never had any problems with paid protesters. MoveOn seriously considered running an ad during the Superbowl that showed President Push morphing into Hitler. No one on the left complained that this was over-the-top. Democrats don't believe in guns but last November, members of the New Black Panthers stood outside a polling place carrying clubs and shouting racial epithets. Again, no reaction from the left.

So is this just a matter of the left objecting to its own tactics when they are the subject? I don't think so.

I think that this is a concerted, if ineffectual, effort to discredit the protesters. This is a page from Saul Alinsky. It is easier to attack an individual than his ideas. If the left can make the protesters seem like a bunch of nuts then they don't have to defend their health care proposals. They are the ones trying to shut down the debate...

Protester: According to the CBO, your health care proposal will bend the curve up instead of down.

Democrat: You're ugly.

New York Times Columnist: These protestors are ugly so we shouldn't listen to them.