Wednesday, August 18, 2004

A thousand words



This photo -- taken at President Bush's recent appearance in Portland, and published on the front page of the Portland Tribune -- shows a Bush supporter attempting to silence a protester.

It speaks volumes, I think, about the underlying dynamic of this year's election.

Something similar, I should mention, occurred during Michelle Malkin's recent Seattle-area appearance:
Her controversial views, detailed in her book "In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror," drew some 200 people to Cedar Park Church, many of them supporters.

When naysayers challenged her thinking, many in the crowd applauded to cut them off, or repeatedly shouted "Ask the question!" when critics tried to offer a counterpoint.

What's worth pointing out, of course, is that many of the people who stood up to denounce Malkin were themselves Japanese American internees, and most of them were very elderly.

Of course, at her blog, Malkin tried to depict the dynamic as being a matter of elderly internees mostly being rude to her. (The report in the Times, where she used to work, was "biased.")

[Thanks to Citizen Able in comments for pointing to the Portland photo.]

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