digby: Compare last summer's Dem town halls with this fall's GOP rallies

[BurtWorm]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/for-thee-but-not-for-me-by-digby-its.html

For Thee But Not For Me

by digby


It's quite interesting that so many of the tea party candidates are having "unauthorized" people who ask them questions arrested (or restrained and assaulted by their followers) when it was just a year ago that this was how they instructed their own people to behave at political meetings:

<From ThinkProgress>

This morning, Politico reported that Democratic members of Congress are increasingly being harassed by “angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior” at local town halls. For example, in one incident, right-wing protesters surrounded Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) and forced police officers to have to escort him to his car for safety.

This growing phenomenon is often marked by violence and absurdity. Recently, right-wing demonstrators hung Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD) in effigy outside of his office. Missing from the reporting of these stories is the fact that much of these protests are coordinated by public relations firms and lobbyists who have a stake in opposing President Obama’s reforms.

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:




– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”


...

<digby again>

Were any of these people arrested or assaulted? If they were, I don't recall it.

But we've certainly seen that happen in recent days -- to Democrats.

...


This goes way beyond hypocrisy. This is a group of people who truly believe that constitutional protections only apply to them --- in their minds, the founders wrote it to protect good conservative Christian people from the traitors who would challenge their supremacy.

[Dawson Leery]

1. k/r

[City Lights]

2. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones

reTHUGlicans concentrate on. reTHUGlicans have nothing to offer other than smoke and mirrors.

[zbdent]

3. Imagine what would have happened if the woman stomped upon

was found to have a gun (whether it was hers or not, whether she had one when she arrived at the scene or if it was planted on her) upon being beaten?

But, of course, people with guns and rifles outside "town halls" near Democrats? "We're just exercising our second amendment rights ..."