Group Village Idiots

WSJ, Best of the Web, 9/1/2004

Street protest is central to the mythology of the liberal-left in America, which romanticizes (rightly) the civil-rights marches of the early 1960s and (less rightly) the antiwar demonstrations of the late '60s and early '70s. In contrast, there's nothing like this on the right, except for the antiabortion movement and the occasional ad hoc protest, like the one in Florida against the Clinton administration's abduction and deportation of Elian Gonzalez.

The liberal media generally present these protests as if they're wholesome, all-American expressions of opinion, glossing over the reality that the protesters are a motley collection of extreme partisans, antieverything nihilists and single-issue fanatics. This allows liberal elites to imagine that their loathing of the president is a populist posture.