DCist Likens Anti-War Protesters to Tea Partiers who Spat on Rep Cleaver and Shouted Anti-Gay Slur at Rep Frank

"Click Click: First Fringe of Spring" was the headline Sunday for a collection of photos on DCist and an accompanying write-up by weekend editor Kriston Capps.

The news:

What's a lovely spring day in the District of Columbia good for? Spewing vitriol! Yesterday, residents of the District had their choice of irrational flavors: deranged right or nutbar left.

Oh my! So what did the tea partiers do? Capps quotes Politico:

The Democrats' health care plan wasn't the only thing the Tea Partiers found time to protest. They also booed Europe and a list of Latin American leaders. One protestor shouted an anti-gay slur at Rep Barney Frank (D-Mass.), and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said that he heard from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) that another protester called him the N-word. A spokesman for Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) issued a statement Saturday night saying Cleaver had been spat upon.

Hmm. That does sound like vitriol indeed.

What about the crazy vitriol from the left, though? Capps has only this to say:

No one pays any attention to the anti-war left protesters calling for President Bush's impeachment, so who knows how that rally went. Apparently, they want to see more Lady Gaga.

Wow, great news-aggregating! Um, you have to be way more clever than that in your snark to get away with the old I'm-too-lazy-too-actually-check-what-happened blog posting trick. And linking to the Post article would have been such a chore (or Bloomberg, CNN.com...)

Now, what's this, people calling for Bush's impeachment? Either Capps is trying to make up some super-clever joke, or he is confused and meant to be referencing the sign (included in one of the accompanying photos) that says "Indict Bush." Impeach, indict, whatever.

To be sure, there were some signs at the anti-war demonstration that I thought were extreme, inaccurate, or said things I thought were wrong. But where were the lefties spitting on people and yelling slurs, though? Capps doesn't have the goods. Probably because there weren't any. Because, actually, in the reality-based world, there is little equivalence to be found between what happened at the anti-war rally and at the Tea Party rally.

Leave the false-equivalence thing to the traditional media, please -- there's more than enough to go around.

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Coda: It turns out it's not the first time that Capps has gone after demonstrators on the left. In January, he wrote this:

Around 70 protesters joined Sheehan outside CIA HQ in Virginia, and half of them then marched out to McLean for a throwback protest near former Vice President Dick Cheney's house. It should be noted that Cheney no longer has any authority over the deployment of drones anywhere (I think).

Clever! But it turns out the stated purpose of the stop at Cheney's house was not about Cheney's current authority over the deployment of anything; it was about bringing him to justice for crimes he committed while in office.

Snark is all fun and good until facts get in the way.