DC tea party

There's something happening here...

No, I didn't go, with a confluence of events preventing my participation. That's pretty unusual as I like to attend all the big D.C. displays of people power, including a couple of anti-war marches, President Obama's inauguration, the April tea party and one protest with no discernible theme. It's too bad, because based on some of the coverage I've come across I may have missed out on a real Buffalo Springfield moment of the political right. A few hundred thousand conservatives marching in D.C., when is the last time that ever happened?

The best take I've read come from Reason's Matt Welch, whose observations of the protesters matches up with my own impressions from seeing them on the DC metro that morning. It's worth noting that Welch, while of the political right, is not a reflexive Obama hater and actually made the case for libertarians to vote for him at a panel discussion I attended last year.

One point raised by Welch is that while the protesters may have been anti-Obama, they were not pro-Republican:

Of the people I ended up talking to, the general vibe was that they were conservative, and then either Republican, formerly Republican, or independent. Every single one had unkind words to say about George W. Bush's spending and governing record, though none had protested him. None expressed trust in Republicans, and most preferred a "throw-all-the-bums-out" strategy.

Interestingly, The New York Times had this to say about the protest:

Mr. DeMint and a few Republican legislators were the only party leaders on hand for the demonstration. Republican officials said privately that they were pleased by the turnout but wary of the anger directed at all politicians.

Oh, I bet.

More thoughts later.