And the weirdness of the April 15 Tea-Bag Tax Protesters continues, with the paranoia and the pepper spray and the hysteria. I don't know why this should surprise anyone; by definition, after all, nuts are centrally involved in any act of teabagging, public or private.
The head of ACORN denies knowing anything about any plots to infiltrate the Tea-Bag Party Protests on April 15, but this is simply implausible. An acorn is of course a form of nut -- and there's your connection.
Besides, as Steve M points out, even if ACORN doesn't know anything about the plot, that hardly means the plot won't succeed. Hark to the cold inexorable logic: "whether it is true or not, part of the goal is achieved none the less." Fiendish, really.
The pushback is of the same excellent quality:
To be clear, we have not seen any evidence that the rumors are true or false. We ask again, at the risk of being the continued recipient of further liberal-progressive ridicule and scorn (because that is what you get if you dare ask a question they do not think should be asked)…
Has anyone heard anything about these rumors?
They asked the question, and then said the answer doesn't matter, and for this they wish to avoid ridicule? Interesting. Also interesting is that they continue to ask the question even though we know they read the Prospect piece where ACORN denies the rumors, because they link to it in an update here. But the very best part comes in their devastating riposte to Dave Noon:
And Instapundit is now a wingnut?? That is simply ignorant. Glenn Reynolds is far more libertarian than conservative.
A hit! A palpable hit! Take THAT, Noon!
Adding to the fun is that the ACORN rumors made it all the way to Fox, where Neil Cavuto gave his viewers the Straight Dope:
"Only eight days before a nationwide tea party, some over-caffeinated crashers aiming to lay waste to it," Cavuto said. "Reports of very well-organized infiltrators trying to mix in and rain on this parade. Talk about taxing."
"Reports" here is awesome; remember, this all goes back to a single post on a crazy right wing message board. But remember: "Cavuto explained the early reports of the 'so-called infiltration plan' were an attempt to make it look like fringe-group efforts and in some case appears as a "racist undertaking." But they're not "fringe" at all! Why,
"The people understand what these movements are about," Meckler said. "The people who are involved understand that they're not racist. They are not fringe. They're not even partisan. I mean, these are events where we have people across the board – Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, Libertarians – you name it."
Right. Anyway, here's some sound advice from the Founding Bloggers comments on how to keep these ACORN goons from getting Teabaggers from signing their phony "petitions":
A very good friend of mine had a great suggestion for signing these peitions…let’s all sign…with the name John Galt!
While I think this is an excellent idea since John Galt is an Ayn Rand character in her book Atlas Shrugged that represents the power of the individual — I would like to suggest a twist on this suggestion. What if we all sign the petition Barack Obama so the connection between Obama and ACORN becomes more obvious to everyone. What could be more fitting than to advertise that Obama SUPPORTS Obama’s agendas listed on the petition? A kind of conflict of interest there — wouldn’t ya think?
Oh I’m so torn between signing John Galt or Barack Obama. Hmmmmm- Now I’m hoping someone asks me to sign just so I can do that. It’s great we are making them into nervous ninneys.
Imagining writing imaginary names on an imaginary petition circulated by imaginary "saboteurs" at a protest meant to redress imaginary grievances is, well, pretty damn imaginative. No ninnies, these!