Rile Versus Substance (Craig Shirley Lectures Conservative Activists From On High)

During his presidency, Lyndon Johnson notoriously said of an international ally that he was a “sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.”

His public attitude might also be ascribed, from time to time, to leaders on both the left and the right when they’re confronted with some of their more radical supporters — even if, in private, they can only shake their heads.

Presumably responsible Democratic and liberal leaders found themselves sometimes embarrassed by Code Pink and other protesters who resorted to violence and goofy street-theater tactics to bring attention to their varied causes, the most recent being the war in Iraq. MoveOn.org depicted George W. Bush as Hitler in a 2004 commercial, and Bush was regularly mocked and burned in effigy as a war criminal by elements of the angry left. Cindy Sheehan made herself emblematic of the embarrassing left.

Democratic leaders in the late 1960s, while sympathetic to the message of the anti-Vietnam War protesters, often found themselves attempting to keep activists at arm’s length while working toward their goal of getting the U.S. out of Southeast Asia. Republicans of the era — claiming to speak for a “silent majority” — did their utmost to drape the more radical elements of the anti-war movement around the necks of Democratic Sens. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Ed Muskie of Maine, among others. In the end, however, the protesters might have prolonged the war, as Middle America resisted being on the same side as a scruffy bunch of spoiled brats.

Today, conservatives and GOP leaders are finding turnabout is, indeed, fair play: Right-wing protesters carrying guns or signs of President Barack Obama sporting a Hitler mustache — or ridiculously claiming he wasn’t born in the United States — are finding their political adversaries (including the gentle and soft-spoken folks at MSNBC) doing their level best to indict all those on the right for the actions of a lesser number.

Yet what the elites don’t understand is that by mocking the opposition from on high, it does not humiliate or embarrass it; it makes it even angrier, stronger and more resolute.

Welcome to the big asylum — 2009 — where everybody has a blog and the attention is on the more radical elements of the right.

The problem is there are nuts, and then there are nuts. Since the beginning of the republic, there have been zealots in the cause of righteousness such as Sam Adams and Thomas Paine, always pushing, always agitating. In the cause of emancipation, suffrage, war, peace, coinage, land and the expansion of freedoms, this country has always allowed and then finally acceded to the demands of the radical visionaries. The status quo has rarely been acceptable for Americans, and principled nuts have served a valuable purpose.

The zealots of the extreme right and extreme left today have fewer claims on such noble aspirations, and many of their antics seem more about adding to their YouTube profiles, being covered by the media or driving up their ratings than about achieving real goals. Ignorance and hate seem to be their organizing principles. Having recently been the target of a left-wing disinformation campaign, we know about the sting of an info-battle, especially the now-commonplace death threat, brought about by rants.

It isn’t enough to say it comes with the turf. I’ve been at this game for nearly 40 years, and in all that time, no one has ever told me my days on the streets were numbered — until now. Adlai Stevenson once said his “definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”

Boat rockers come in two different forms: those who rock the boat to change course and those who rock the boat simply to scare other people.

Two things are missing from both sides today: decency and expanded knowledge. Indeed, both extremes seem to revel in anti-intellectualism and bad manners. Street theater and attention-getting antics are all well and good, but they must serve a purpose. Once a cause has the crowd’s attention, it must do something beyond simply causing more acting up.

Many believed the anti-Iraq war protesters had a legitimate point. And many today believe the fear on the right of Big Obama and his notions to “remake America” is also legitimate, but in both instances, the messages were muddled because of the more extreme elements.

Many conservatives find the birthers especially frustrating, as it isn’t necessary to make up things about Obama. The truth of his policies is scary enough, and if the shock troops of the right want to be the conservatives’ sonofabitches, they’d better learn more effective and practical ways to protest the liberal policies of Obama than simply painting mustaches on photographs. They need to recall the words of the great philosopher Emil Faber, founder of Faber College: “Knowledge is good.”

I'm tired of being lectured by our inside-the-beltway betters. Craig Shirley knows nothing about the subject he's writing about except what he's learned from the media. If had been involved in street activism, he'd know that Code Pink has deep ties to the leadership of the Democratic Party from Obama on down. He'd know that it is Democrats who are going around with the Obama-Hitler moustache posters.

For the 11 years of Free Republic street activism, the support from our conservative betters has been sorely lacking as they looked down on street activism--until now that the uncouth right wing rabble has shown it can be effective.

Shirley ignores the million-plus who came out for the tea parties on April 15, the million plus who have peaceably protested and attended town halls this summer, all the people who have read the bills and knowledgeably engaged the opposition and the media. Shirley ignores all those people and piles on us with the Democrats and the media. Who needs Keith Olbermann to kick us in the ****s when Craig Shirley will do it for him? I suppose we should be grateful Shirley didn't call us teabaggers.

Presumably responsible Democratic and liberal leaders found themselves sometimes embarrassed by Code Pink

Actually, Code Pink doesn't say anything that hasn't come out of the mouths of Pelosi and Kerry and Gore and Reid and Obama himself.

In the New Democratic Party, Code Pink is mainstream.

Many conservatives find the birthers especially frustrating, as it isn’t necessary to make up things about Obama.

No, it isn't. So, Craig, you're all over the media bringing up O's connections to Saddam's money, the Rizko affair, the Annenburg debacle, his incestuous relationship with Ayers and that whole network which includes the ACORN mob, his repeated use of mobs to intimidate his opponents. Street level intimidation is how he made his career.

Craig can feel free to join with the Democrats in tut-tutting the so-called "birthers" but it doesn't change the fact that O has hidden his biography from public view, the real one that is. He's had two biographies ghost-written for him that are long on poetry and very short on facts. The facts, in fact, have been buried and very carefully hidden from view. There is a hole where his biography is supposed to be, and Craig seems embarrassed of anyone who asks for even the most basic documentation.

Has it not occurred to him that someone who uses mob intimidation as a political tool, someone who conspires to hand out hundreds of millions to his friends before he's elected and then hands out billions to his friends after he's elected, someone who would openly fire car dealers who didn't vote for him, might have a skeleton or two in his closet? So is it really that embarrassing to ask for basic documentation that anyone else would provide without hesitation?

Yep. I am sick and tired of these conservative wimps complaining about the embarrassment they feel over the style of activists.

I think Krauthammer jumped the shark for all time when he sat with the panel on Fox News and decried the townhallers who were yelling at their congresscritter. CK, who got his pundit chair from family connections, scolded the protestestors. He felt his own dignity being threatened.

I’m sick and tired of people not getting off their...easy chairs to get out to let their voices be heard, and leadership not being leaders. I have posted pleas to get support for troop rallies. NOT ONE PERSON SHOWED! Someone in major party leadership told me yesterday that the Board had decided that they would only call out their activists for candidates, not street protests. Yet they will be at the 9-12 event! They were at the Healthcare Protest last week! Then I was given the usual excuses, “It’s a weeknight.”, “We don’t want to protest “them”.”, “People are tea partied out.”, blah blah blah, at which I pointed out that the Lefties have the things to do yet they are turning out! The party folks don’t get it. One who is supposed to be a friend hasn’t returned my call and emails, yet he asked me to put this counter protest together.

I got basically the same thing from a local patriot group, except that they have folks going over to support another group that is farther away.

If they are the only voice, then the Left will claim the majority supports their position.

I have been doing rallies twice a week for SEVEN YEARS in support of the troops and America. Then there have been counter-protests against anti-war groups like ANSWER, and now tea parties and anti-healthcare rallies.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. So the club I belong to may hear about it if no one wants to help me tomorrow. I’ll just go and stand with people who give more than lip service!

Thanks bartender! Set ‘er up again!

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