Dave Wiegel, The Washington Post reporter delegated to keep an eye on conservatives in a way similar to the way anthropologists study cannibals, unsurprisingly comes down on the “who are these guys and what are they up to?” side of the Bob Etheridge incident:
So who are the students? I don’t know. The National Republican Congressional Committee tells me they didn’t send them, and “DCCameraGuy” has yet to respond to my e-mail. But without any name or organizational support, just by riling up a member of Congress, the students have created the first conservative meme of the week. They seem to have learned from organizations such as ThinkProgress that any video of a member acting strangely, no matter how grainy, is grist for the Web.
So, the issue to Wiegel is the identity of two men who asked a civil question, not that a member of Congress reacted like Russell Crowe confronted by an intrusive paparazzo. Some are alleging these two men were Republican plants trying to get a negative reaction from Etheridge. All I can say, after viewing the video, is they’re lucky they didn’t tell the congressman his mother wears combat boots. He might have really gotten violent.
Ironically, it was the mainstream media that four years ago gave aid, cover and support to an actual opposition party operative on a search-and-destroy mission. It’s difficult to see how someone, especially employed by The Washington Post, that wrote dozens of stories about the George Allen “macaca” incident, can take this approach to the Etheridge blowup.
