And as for Fox being fair and balanced, come on, next you will tell me MSNBC is a bastion of bipartisanship.

Fox knows what it is doing, Rupert Murdoch has a model that works, News Corp caters to conservatives.

Billionaires for Wealthcare is a PR stunt just like the manufactured outrage at the townhalls. And it isn’t aimed at convincing the 912ers, they are clearly not persuadable.

B4W is designed to expose the 912ers for what they wittingly or unwittingly are, shills for the insurance industry through their PR and lobby-ist front groups like FreedomWorks.
http://www.ourfuture.org/files/AHIP_chart.jpg

Our audience is the media at the events. We want to steal as much of the 912ers media as possible, the organizers spend millions of dollars to produce the earned media from the march/rally. Our audience is also our base like the 28,000 who have watched the youtube or those who saw us on Maddow.

Our main audience are the folks who sign up to take part in actions going forward at
http://www.billionairesforwealthcare.com/

Satire is and always has been a potent form of political expression.

never will vote for a Democrat,
Okay… but not everyone at the rally was a hardcore Republican, and the polls show he’s losing support among Independents…

are passionately convinced that they are right
Wouldn’t that be true of anyone willing to protest anything, or for that matter, write a blog and/or take photos for advocacy purposes… and if so, is that necessarily a bad thing?

and get all of their information from Fox news.
WHOA-NOOOO… the wheels came off the train! What is your evidence for that? What about the recent study that shows FNC STILL has a more balanced audience of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents? I know you (and the Liberal-left) want to use FOX as your perpetual boogie man… talking about the things “you don’t want to talk about,” “attempting to trick their audience,” and “perpetually promoting Right-wing propaganda,” but it’s just not true.

Those are the facts on the ground, the teabaggers [Ugh... I remember when the Democrats complained it was unfair of Republicans to call them the "Democrat Party." Apparently, the level of "civility and respect" the were so adamantly demanded doesn't work both ways.] do not represent the majority of the country.
Do any protesters represent a majority? Do they need to? Did the lefties calling Bush “Hitler” and the like, represent “the majority of the country?” Certainly not. They represented a vocal group of people, but not necessarily the majority… and nobody claims them to be the majority.

However, the fact does remain that Republicans tend to be less of the protesting-type… and the fact that these people (Republicans, and non-Obama supporters alike) are mobilizing at bigger and bigger numbers. As Nate Silver says, to underestimate them would be a mistake.

Seeing as though my purpose for being at the rally was Billionaires for Wealthcare
I get it now. I couldn’t figure out if you were pointing to jackasses attempting to amass a failure of a counter-protest (to show that you’re unbiased and would call out both sides for being dumb-dumb-stupid)… or if you were supporting them. But now I get it.

I like your groups idea of fighting fire with foolishness. I’m sure you will convince a lot of people that universal heathcare is the way to go, after they hear your songs, and see your costumes. Many people underestimate the power of 20-or so street performers, in a sea of 70,000… but wow, I’m sure you gave the protesters a lot to think about. *Rolls Eyes*

But even if I give you that Michelle Malkin was ignorant when she posted it and that the guy on stage was ignorant when he said the number, I can unequivocally say that Glenn Beck is a liar when he continues to say that 1.7 million people came to DC even after FreedomWorks issued their ludicrously inflated 600,000 number.

I never said the rally was small I just said that it was a laughably transparent lie to say that it was 600,000 or 1 million or 1.7 million or 2 million. Nate Silver is right, and I have said all along there are millions of people in this country who did not vote for Obama, never will vote for a Democrat, are passionately convinced that they are right and get all of their information from Fox news. Fact is the Democrats still won the election.

69,456,897 voted for Obama, but 59,934,814 voted against him. Those are the facts on the ground, the teabaggers do not represent the majority of the country. I don’t believe they represent the majority of the Republican party. But there are a lot of them.

Seeing as though my purpose for being at the rally was Billionaires for Wealthcare I am obviously answering your question about what type of activist I am and also shamelessly plugging our awesome new video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1I9xsV-g9Y

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a lie… it certainly wasn’t true, but for it to be a lie, I think the liars would have needed to know it was an overt lie. But either way, still not true.

However, don’t ignore the last paragraph, while you pat yourself on the back that it wasn’t “2-million people”:

This was not a small rally. It was also not, in comparison with something like the 2006 pro-immigration protests, a particularly large rally. It was a business-as-usual sort of rally. Mock the protesters at your peril: business as usual suddenly isn’t so good for Democrats these days, and the sentiments of the 70,000 people who marched on Washington surely mirror those of millions more sitting at home.

As for the repeated posts about the “Billionaires for Wealthcare” stuff… what is your point? I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

Rachel Maddow: “Billionaires For Wealthcare” At Teabagger Protest In Washington, DC – 09/14/09

Size Matters; So Do Lies
by Nate Silver @ 3:30 AM

This is a great analysis of how the lie about crowd size spread through the right wing echo chamber and ended up all over the internet, including a few times in the comments here.

So not worse, and not as bad, per se… but still far from good.

He’s as bad or worse than Keith Olbermann. It’s disgusting that GE/MSNBC is so in the tank for Obama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1I9xsV-g9Y

http://twitpic.com/hg0gm

Isn’t this the truth!

And even if there were, it doesn’t excuse the offensiveness of the messages in those signs, or the act of covering the Obama sign with excrement. And saying “the left does it too” is a really immature, poor excuse for inexcusable behavior.

Tommy Christopher says:
September 13, 2009 at 1:54 pm

SuperSmart says:
September 13, 2009 at 1:35 pm

The argument isn’t “they did it to,” that would be using bad behavior to justify bad behavior. The argument is, “where was your (author, commenter, etc.) outrage when XYZ happened on YOUR side of the aisle?” Why is that relevant, you ask? Well, if we are to take the author at his or her word, then this stuff is very offensive because it is “mean spirited” and nasty. However, if they did not complain about the same stuff (and/or worse) when it was one of their political equals, then it’s evidence they object not because the signs are “mean and nasty,” but because of the OPINIONS held.

For example, Person A and Person B believe in XYZ, while Person C disagrees. Person B and Person C hold a protest, with identical signs, modified for their respective opinion. If Person A says Person C’s protest is “inappropriate,” but says nothing about Person B’s, what is the real complaint? It can’t be the protest, because the protests are identical… therefore it must be the difference, ie: the politics, not the content.

If Mr. Christopher and Mr. Lawson (neither of which were identified in this article as being Progressives, Liberals, or left-of-center, despite their obvious biases, agreement across the web of those biases, and note saying Mr. Lawson is an “activist” but not an “activist for what”) present the argument as though they are opposed to the protest, and offended by the signage because of the CONTENT, they are lying. The lie is proven by their silence towards protests on their own “side.” Therefore, we can conclude, they’re objecting to the POLITICS (Republicans, those who disagree on healthcare, etc.)… and that changes the effect of the article completely. That’s why the history is relevant.

If you are going to condemn something in a new article then at least putt some context for the reason people might be bringing signs like that. You could have mentioned Harry Reid in your new article. The Democrats turned Kennedy into just another political point. That should have been made clear in this current article. That would be far more fair than referencing people back to something you wrote on the 29th.

http://dailydose.us/2009/08/29/politicizing-kennedys-death-for-dummies/

“Any thinking, feeling human being should be able to understand a little something about the grieving process. Conservatives experienced it heavily when Reagan passed away not so long ago. It is a process that ought not to be interfered with, and I would even say it ought not to be scrutinized all that much. People like this, and people like this, should be ignored, and those grieving should either be supported or left alone.”

this is a ridiculous, hydra-headed conversation. You didn’t read that piece, or you didn’t understand it, because the entire point of it was that the SPECIFIC statements that were being complained about did not meet the bar for crass politicization. I hadn’t seen, nor did I reference, the Reid comment, so I can hardly be accused of defending it.

Again, if someone does something messed up, they’re going to get called out for it, and all the tearful “But THEY said/did THIS…” arguments aren’t going to change that. This is a concept that’s taught in kindergarten, that bad behavior doesn’t excuse bad behavior, yet the notion eludes so many.

“The echo from my Tweetdeck’s delivery of the sad news had barely died down when conservatives started in: Now that Ted Kennedy had died, liberals had better not “play politics” with his death in order to get health care reform passed. While I might share a sliver of agreement with the sentiment, we differ wildly on the yardstick.”

You sure have a HUGE YARDSTICK for letting Dem’s get away with alot. But my point , you didn’t bring up the Dem’s pathetic use of Kennedy to try and rescue their failed health reform even in passing for complaining about the poor choice of signs at the rally.

When the Senate Majority leader can say something so terrible:

[Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) put his foot in his mouth again this week, saying in an interview that former Sen. Ted Kennedy's death would "help" the Democratic Party and move health care reform forward.

"I think it's going to help us," Reid told the Reno Gazette-Journal Aug. 29 when asked how Kennedy's death would affect the standing of the health care bill.]

Which is worse? The Senate Majority Leader saying such a crass thing or the sign? When the Dem’s say stupid things like that and try and use his death to hijack 1/6 of the economy, don’t be surprised if about some crass signs.

your (anonymously made) accusation is contradicted by 3rd party coverage of the event. Go check out HuffPo, they’ve got pictures of the protesters photographing the sign. The authenticity of the photo is not disputable, although your zeal to deny it must mean you denounce it, and good for you for that.

Captain,

I did write about Dems’ reaction to Kennedy’s death. Here’s the link:

http://tommychristopher.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/politicizing-kennedys-death-for-dummies/

Partisans on both sides have this weird idea about “balance” that says that, in order to report someone’s bad behavior, you must also catalog someone else’s past bad behavior. This is a fake burden.

For the sake of balance, however, this piece does include reporting about liberal counter-protesters who dress up as billionaires and thank the assembled protesters for doing their grunt work. They did not carry signs desecrating the recently deceased. How about that?

Also, if you are going to complain about that tasteless sign then why don’t you try and be objective about it? Why not write about how Pelosi and other Democrats within hours of Kennedy’s death were trying to take advantage of the situation? What about Harry Reid’s comment? Perhaps if the Democrats didn’t try within hours of Sen Kennedy’s death to try and rescue the failed Obama care by renaming it Kennedy Care there wouldn’t have been signs like that. Or the use off a kid at a memorial. Or Obama bringing up the letter from Teddy the other night. Don’t blame the Republicans for this but forgot to mention how the Democrats have used his death all for political gain.

And give this photog a break – if you want a panoramic view of the event, there is plenty of other coverage all over the place. No one can rely on only one source to get a balanced view. This site and this author do not purport to be the final say on the story, if they did it would be entirely correct to call them out. However, with a more limited capacity to present the whole, out of all the possible non-meaningful portrayals of what they saw, they picked the ones that appeared to be newsworthy. If you only want favorable coverage of your despicable behavior, go to fox.

Not to mention that such an argument is bread crumbs when compared to the issue of being extremely insensitive to the memory someone who wasn’t dead for even one month, and being so sincere and earnest about doing so, and for what? Just for the sake of a crappy joke? Is there anything worth defending in THAT?

I meant for you to read back further than that, like when I stuck up for Carrie Prejean when Countdown made fun of her tits and compared her to a Nazi, or when I called out a Townhall columnist for using racially charged imagery, or when I pointed out that Countdown ran a “short bus” graphic in the same episode where they tried to shame Sarah Palin by donating to the Special Olympics, or when Redstate made implications about incest regarding Levi Johnston and his sister, or when I counter-protested left wingers in Denver, or when I asked Gibbs if he thought it was cool to make fun of people who brought their kids out in the rain for the Tea Party, or…well, you get the picture.

As for the Playboy thing, that was the first example that came to mind because it cost me a job.

While there’s no doubt that this is a commentary piece, I also took the time to provide several examples, with clear sourcing and a clear point of view, and tracked down the origin of the sign.

Yes, there is a reason each picture shows a single sign: That’s how people take pictures. The guy isn’t really equipped to take a panoramic shot with his phone.

Alex has failed to “capture the essence of the protest”. Instead he handpicked a few unsavory individuals to fit his anti-teaparty agenda.

And so I agree. Those pictures do speak a thousand words. About Alex and Tommy.