What I Saw at the Discombobulation

DENVER—Never was so much hype
created by so few to simulate the appearance of so many.

The hard-core left vowed to turn
out 50,000 protesters for the
Democratic National Convention this week. They
pledged to "Re-create `68" and cause the kind of
tear-gas-infused
revolutionary havoc that marked the DNC in Chicago

four decades ago. Police prepared for the worst
riots. Media from around the world anticipated the best
pictures.

But when rhetorical push came to
real-life shove, the nostalgic, Marx-adoring organizers
of Re-create `68 seem to have mustered no more than, oh,
68 bodies. Their presence here is dwarfed by the massive
show of police, press and camera-toting looky-loos. You
can`t take a picture without
someone else taking pictures of everyone else taking
pictures of not much else getting in your frame.

The chaos-inducers` mouths were a
mile wide. Their crowds have been an inch deep. What`s
left of the leftover `60s movement is all sizzle and no
steak. Or veggie burger. Deep-fried tofu. Whatever.

At an abortion
protest/counter-protest on Saturday in front of

a Planned Parenthood mega-facility, I counted fewer
than a dozen pro-abortion activists milling about with
three times as many media members. The majority of
demonstrators were more exercised about the war in Iraq
than about the vaunted woman`s right to choose death for
her unborn child—the stated focus of the demonstration.

And while Democratic Party Chair
Howard Dean excoriates the Republican Party as the
"white" party, I saw only one non-white agitator
among the pro-abortion gaggle. (This goes for the rest
of the Re-create `68 populace, too. It`s as pale and
colorless as a Colorado snowfall.) Across the street
from the Planned Parenthood event, however, were many
incensed black- and brown-skinned moms—incensed that an
abortion mill had been built right across from the park
where their children practice football and swing on the
playground set.

One of the moms said bluntly: "I
don`t want a f**king abortion clinic in my
neighborhood!" A Hispanic mother added: "It`s
against the Catholic Church." (Are you listening,
Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi?) When asked about her views
on abortion, a black mother of three told me simply from
her minivan: "I don`t believe in it."

Speaking of disbelief, behold the
dregs of the self-pitying anti-war movement. The
white-flag crowd had so much trouble getting coverage of
its worn-out, giant puppet-toting, drum-beating, ratty
lingerie-flashing, Bush-cursing antics on Sunday that a
sympathizer at the Associated Press devoted an entire
sob story to the apathy.

"CodePink faces tough odds for public`s attention,"
the AP`s Christine Simmons mourned. Perhaps if more than
10 of them showed up at one time to do something other
than scream about BusHitler or bawl about detained

Gitmo jihadists, they`d have better luck.

At Denver`s City Center on Monday
night, law enforcement authorities encountered about 100
aimless grievance-mongers—self-described as
"anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-war"—who
finally fixed on something concrete to protest when
their friends were arrested for refusing to disperse.
"My freedom of speech was suppressed," one protester
complained as she spoke freely to the media and
acknowledged that she hadn`t been arrested or asked to
show identification.

In the melee, a few responsible
adults were accidentally hit with pepper spray.
Otherwise, Denver blogger Charlie Martin, who was
covering the scene for Pajamas Media, quipped:

"It was the world`s most boring riot."

Finally, in a sorry attempt to
re-create Abbie Hoffman`s satirical stunt aimed at

levitating the Pentagon, a dozen Re-create `68
stragglers dressed up like the cast of "Harry
Potter," wielded magic wands and joined hands to
float the Denver Mint. The Mint stayed firmly on the
ground. To salvage the abysmal turnout, an unhinged
contingent of 9/11 conspiracy theorists started barking
at me. One buffoon shouted,
"Kill Michelle Malkin," while the levitation
experts chanted, "Peace and Justice!" and a
wizard paraded around in his "Arrest Bush"
T-shirt with Che Guevara promoters tossing fake quarters
in the air.

To paraphrase a favorite left-wing
bumper sticker slogan, discombobulation is the highest
form of patriotism. Blame bankrupt ideology, not the
altitude.

COPYRIGHT

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Michelle Malkin [email
her] is author of

Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists,
Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores.
Click

here for Peter Brimelow`s review. Click

here for Michelle Malkin`s website.
Michelle Malkin`s latest book is "Unhinged:
Exposing Liberals Gone Wild."