pro-government health care policies rallied at a town hall of their congresswoman, Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor.

The constituents at events like Castor's are the same ones who organized anti-spending and anti-tax tea parties in the spring. The mainstream media at first ignored those grassroots displays of taxpayer outrage and turned to ridicule when the pesky protesters refused to be ignored.

Both weapons exploded in their faces, so the St. Petersburg Times embraced the sniper rifle of subtlety in its coverage of Castor's town hall.

Jon Henke of The Next Right heard the first shot -- the newspaper changed its story, literally -- and exposed the sniper. The Times (whose parent company once employed me at Congressional Quarterly) initially, and correctly, thought it fair to note that the Service Employees International Union organized a counter protest at Castor's event.

The paper also included this explosive quote from an SEIU official hinting at plans to instigate trouble

. . . at the event: “We’re prepared [for disruption]. We have strategies to deal with it if it should come up.”

That language provided important context about a group whose leader once described his thug-like organizing philosophy like this: “[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn’t work we use the persuasion of power.”

The Media Take Aim At ‘The Mob’
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