Catching up on email here at work while having C-Span on in the background. Wasn’t going to make any more comments for the moment, but…

They showed what looked like an ANSWER related protester group chanting over and over again:

Hey Bush, we know you… your daddy was a killer too!
Hey Bush, we know you… your daddy was a killer too!
Hey Bush, we know you… your daddy was a killer too!
Hey Bush, we know you… your daddy was a killer too!
Hey Bush, we know you… your daddy was a killer too!

OK, just a message to these type of guys. It is folks like you that caused the re-election of W. (Or at least helped it.)

You have every right to protest. You have every right to protest in rude and distasteful ways. I think it is wrong that they have been doing this “designated free speech zones” thing to restrict protesters to certain areas. But what you are doing with such hateful chants is counter-productive, and only makes YOU look bad, not W or the Republicans.

There are many ways to show your displeasure with the choices W made, your dissapointment with the election results, and probably even your lack of respect for the man. But there are ways that are civil and constructive, and there are ways that do nothing but make you look like radical baffoons. If you actually have any desire to “win hearts and minds” and get more people to move closer to your viewpoints, rather than just getting yourselves on TV and making fools of yourselves, you might try some other tactics.

Ad hominim attacks, not just on the man, but on his father (who I at least think was a much better president) just seems desperate and petty and will turn away more people than they convince. As it is you are chanting only to those who already agree with you. What signs or chants should you have used instead? I don’t know, I’m not a chant writer. But surely you could have come up with something that makes you look better than that.

Maybe the folks at the “Counter-Inaugural” did better and had some rational speeches and expressed their discontent in productive and convincing ways. I don’t know, I didn’t watch it. Perhaps I will watch some of it off C-Span’s website later. I hope it was. Cause the folks that C-Span showed just then during the motorcade were just sad. Of course, the folks who usually make TV are usually the most outrageous ones. The protesters who are indeed reasonable rarely get covered. Which is of course part of the reason people are outrageous. It does get them on TV. But it does not help their cause.