They’re not all crazy

Thousands of conservative protesters converged on Capitol Hill last Saturday to speak out against President Barack Obama’s handling of health care, the deficit and other fiscal issues.

The rally was associated with Glen Beck’s 9/12 project and was sponsored by many of the same conservative groups that helped put on the “Tea Party” protests last April.
The rally featured appearances by several high-ranking Republicans, like former House Republican Leader Dick Armey and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th District, who is also the House GOP Conference Chairman.

Many Republicans have decided that associating themselves with this conservative movement is good for their political livelihoods and their party. But how much attention should be paid to some of the more radical groups that have turned out at the “Tea Party” protests and last Saturday’s rally? Should Republican leaders be slammed for associating themselves with a movement that has included people that brought guns to town hall meetings and compared Obama to Adolf Hitler?

The answer, for the most part, is no.

The media has obsessed about the fringe elements of these conservative protests because they are easy to sensationalize.

It is true that some of the behavior coming from these conservative activists has been frighteningly inappropriate. One blogger for FreedomWorks, a conservative non-profit that helped sponsor last Saturday’s march, compared Obama’s address to schoolchildren and the tactics of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot.

The National Association of Rural Landowners claimed to be a sponsor of the 9/12 march. That group has suggested that America is on the verge of a civil war among other radical ideas.

But Republican politicians shouldn’t have to go out of their way to denounce every nut who claims to be conservative. Especially when the official site of the 9/12 march didn’t list the National Association of Rural Landowners and the group’s actual connection remains unclear.

It is easier to pick on the loopy groups in American politics, like those who believe 9/11 was engineered by the government, but politicians shouldn’t have to spend all their time apologizing for their fringe just because the media finds it so easy to cover.