Lauren Valle Almost Died for Their Sins

Oh, geez. I guess I should not be surprised by anything done by people who consider chair-throwing a legitimate form of political protest but the incident this past week in which protester Lauren Valle got thrown to the ground by Rand Paul supporters and then stomped in the head by one particularly loathsome individual kinda takes the cake.

Did they really believe the woman deserved that kind of treatment? Granted, I am old enough to remember Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the woman who tried to kill President Gerald Ford back in the 1970s, but then I see no comparisons between a would-be political assassin like Ms. Fromme and a legitimate political protester like Ms. Valle any more than there should be any connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and the original Boston Tea Party. And should not the woman just have been held till the cops arrived if Paul's supporters truly believed she was that much of a legitimate threat? As it stands, it seems like the only thing Ms Valle had in mind was a political stunt that would embarrass Mr. Paul -- and last time I checked, that was not an act deserving of a citizen's arrest, much less a beating.

Ironically, I was just discussing the modern-day Tea party just a few weeks ago with my mother, a former Reagan Democrat who recently admitted to me that she did not care for either the Tea party or Sarah Palin. Of course, my mother's biggest concern back then was not seeing some protester get the stuffing knocked out of her but rather the potential for splitting the conservative vote in the 2012 elections. And indeed, if I were a more cynical person, I would be tempted to argue that the main reason Democratic politicos like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have not come down harder against the Tea party was their hopes for just such a split. After all, the more people who vote for Rand Paul or Sarah Palin as a way of getting back at Obama, the less people left to vote for whoever the GOP picks as their presidential candidate -- and the less likely a victory for anyone running against Obama.

So now the good people who support Rand Paul have given me yet another reason to vote against their party apart from family loyalty. Here's hoping that I do not get kicked in the head as well.