6:56 PM
Leanne D. Baldwin
"Let's be honest, friends," Andrew Breitbart said in a loud voice, in a tone that didn't sound very friendly. "Let's be honest [about] what happened here."
Breitbart was talking about the February pro-union protests that took place at the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin in February and March, and he was addressing two groups of people. The first was a rather small crowd of tea party enthusiasts who had braved the mid-April snow and cold to attend a tax-day rally at which Sarah Palin was the headliner. Breitbart was there to introduce Palin, but he was visibly angered by the presence of the second group in attendance - a large crowd of pro-union counter-protesters that completely surrounded (and dwarfed) the rally crowd.
As my colleague Norbrook reported here yesterday, Capitol police officially estimated the crowd at the capitol Saturday at about 6,500. However, that figure refers to all the people who were at the capitol that day for the tea party event and for an organized labor rally that took place on the opposite side of the capitol. One poster at Democratic Underground who was at the capitol that day provided a photograph and description of the crowd at the tea party rally and outlined in red the part of the crowd that was made up of actual tea partiers.
I've outlined the appx areas that were mostly occupied by the teabaggers. It was 99% OUR SIDE everywhere else. There were a few sprinkled among our crowd, as close as they could get to the stage. The bagger organizers put up a tall partition on the left side (in this pic) of the sidewalk leading up to the Capitol. This was to block off the counter protestors. For awhile we hung out there and put our signs up above the partition. Then we moved over to the other side. ALL DAY more protestors were marching around the square, and many more were hanging out on the opposite side of the square for the organized labor rally. The unions encouraged their members not to go to the Palin side, but many still did.
The police estimate of the crowd was 6,500. Despite what is being said, I don't believe the baggers made up more than about 10%.
The counter-protesters were chanting and shouting at the rally speakers, and Breitbart couldn't quite keep his cool. (I have transcribed his entire remarks, available at this link.) When the chanting began as he took the podium, making it difficult for him to make himself heard, he took a snide pot-shot.
Good to see ya, guys! Good to see you. Do you know what you just, you’re seeing on the periphery of here and what you’re hearing? The death of community organizing!
Most of Breitbart's short speech was delivered in the same scathing, disrespectful tone. And what he wanted to "be honest" about was the "fact" that the pro-union protests of February were the work of President Obama joining forces with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka rather than a grassroots uprising of the people.
Let's be honest what happened here. Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO's been to the White House about a thousand times and cynically have tried to divide Americans against each other and used Wisconsin to try and pit Americans against each other, and the silent majority won."Cynical" is apparently on the rightwing buzzword list this month; Breitbart used it twice in his three minutes at the podium and Palin mentioned cynicism during her fifteen-minute diatribe, which primarily alternated between inaccurate characterizations of Barack Obama's presidency and baseless attacks on his character. But she also picked up Breitbart's mischaracterization of the pro-union demonstrations at Madison and ran with it wholeheartedly. (Palin's entire speech is transcribed here.)
Well, I am in Madison today because this is where real courage and real integrity can beNow, bear in mind that there is ZERO evidence that there were "violent rent-a-mobs" involved in any of the Madison pro-union protests. There were, in fact ZERO police reports of violence, period. As of March 9, there had only been 16 arrests made during the protests, and they were all for disorderly conduct - and according to the Capitol police chief, "seven or eight of those were people who insisted on being arrested." Despite local GOP efforts to circulate rumors of death threats against Republican legislators, the chief of the Capitol police flatly denied that he'd been made aware of any such threats.
found. Courage is your governor and your legislators standing strong in the face of death threats and thug tactics. Courage is you all standing strong with them! You saw the forces aligned against fiscal reform. You saw the obstruction and the destruction. You saw these violent rent-a-mobs trash your capitol and vandalize businesses.
Perhaps it was the knowledge that the enormous crowds of "union thugs" who turned out in Madison in the past two months were, in fact, orderly and non-destructive that made Breitbart so viciously angry at the counter-protesters Saturday. Or maybe he was just pissed that they both dwarfed the tea partiers and drowned out the speakers. Either way, the fact that he addressed the people "on the periphery" as often as he addressed his own rally-goers showed just how far under his skin the pro-union people had gotten. And there was no mistaking the potent venom in his voice when he said:
The Tea Party has been the most peaceful, law-abiding, clean-up-after-themselves group in the history of American protest. And to be lectured by you in the periphery who have lied in getting the doctor’s notes – you have no right to lecture us on civility. You have no right to lecture us onYes, clearly, Andrew Breitbart doesn't need to be lectured on civility.
language. Your “Koch-suckers” business… Go to hell! No, serious. Go to hell! Go to hell!
More on all this later.
