Dirty fucking motorcycle cops.
Fellow Obie Michelle Malkin wants you to know the crimes of the few outweigh the needs of the many, or some such crap:
It wasn’t enough that Portland anti-war thugs burned a US soldier in effigy, and tore and burned the American flag. According to the Portland Tribune, they also knocked a Portland police officer off his bicycle and committed yet another disgusting act:
This splinter group of protesters showed its support for “peace” by burning a U.S. soldier in effigy. It exhibited its supposedly pacifist nature by knocking a police officer off his bike—an action that brought out the police riot squad.Perhaps the most disturbing scene of the afternoon, however, involved the man who pulled down his pants in front of women and children and defecated on a burning U.S. flag. This disgusting act actually elicited cheers from some members of the crowd, but we hope that the emotion it produces in the community is one of revulsion…...The anti-war demonstrators who behaved responsibly this past weekend have an obligation to denounce—and distance themselves from—those protesters who purposefully offend others and consequently destroy the intended message of peace.
Still waiting.
A few fringe actors? Not.
—Meanwhile, out in the real world, here’s what a few “fringe actors” think of the last throes of the whole goddamn dead-ender cause:
Larry says all the cops on motorbikes gave the peace sign to the marchers, but he was only able to capture the image of this one. It stands to reason the hearts of many Portland Police officers must have supported the rally for peace on Sunday. Their counterparts in Iraq are frequent targets of insurgent attacks. Their brothers and sisters, sons and daughters in the military are dying alongside the loved ones of peace activists. Keeping the peace is hard. Our police officers know better than many, that creating peace out of chaos often takes small gestures of friendship as a first step.
Small gestures of friendship. —Greg Sargent quite correctly highlights the small gesture of friendship in the Tribune’s editorial, the one so conveniently left on the cutting-room floor by Malkin’s callous elipses:
The vast majority of the estimated 15,000 protesters who took part in a peace march Sunday in downtown Portland did just that. They were well-behaved, well-intentioned and serious about their cause.
[...]
Most of the people who marched on Sunday fully understand [that violence harms their cause]. And by singling out the few who didn’t, we don’t intend to place thousands of demonstrators under one label.
But it’s too small a gesture. The Tribune went on, like Malkin, like Hannity, to demand that someone—anti-war demonstrators, peace protestors, the Left, Fox Democrats, motorcycle cops, the growing majority of all of us Americans—make a show of denouncing the actions of less than a tenth of one per cent of their number. Fuck that. Wake me when someone—Wolf Blitzer, my senators, the last principled conservative, the Washington Post, the Tribune its own goddamn self—denounces the moral monsters who dragged us into this mess in the first place. Between Dick Cheney and some overly enthusiastic trustafarian shit-head who’s drawn all the wrong lessons from direct action, I know which has done more damage to our flag, and our country, and us. —I know who I’d rather have on my side.
