Could the campaign vandalism really be a plot by Darth Nader?
UPDATED: Glenn (instapundit) and friends worry about a Culture of Fear.
And even Gaypatriot has been vandalized. Is it now actually more of crime to be Republican than gay?
Actually, all I have to say is welcome to the Culture of Victimization.
Your violin is included in your new membership packet.
The story so far:
Across the country there has been a war of vandalism skirmishes taking place in the down-home front yards of suburbia. Your friends and neighbors have been innocently staking into their lawns small billboard signs professing support for either Bush or Kerry. But Evil Forces are Afoot with nefarious plots to destroy, deface, and even replace said campaign signs.
But perhaps simply replacing the signs is the cruelest blow. As one man put it, who had his Kerry signs stolen and replaced with Bush signs,
''I consider that theft and littering".
But citizens are striking back at the evil-doers. One lady even coated her sign with honey, hoping to dissuade attackers, but to no avail.
" I was thinking some sticky-fingered Republican is going to get his just deserts, and I don't mean baklava,''.
And one enterprising fellow has made his own sign-stealer alarm.
"His new sign is attached to a fishing line with cans on it."
A rough glance of vandalism stories marks up as follows.
The Kerry campaign has had two cases of smashed campaign HQ office windows, Another campaign HQ set on fire in addition to graffiti, and three reports on signs stolen or destroyed from different places in the country.
The Bush campaign on the other hand, has had one case of shots fired into a campaign HQ window, (no injuries), 3 episodes of sign stealing, 1 episode of car vandalism, and at least one case of a campaign HQ being blockaded and laid siege to. (I kid you not)
Now yesterday I knocked both Instapundit and Smash as being biased in their descriptions of these events for only reporting on cases of where Bush's campaign signes were being vandalized. And Patterico is still running the party line. But as Mark pointed out, Democrats don't believe in owning handguns, so it couldn't possibly be Democrats that had fired shots at the Republican HQ. ;-)
That got me thinking, how do I know if the people who committed these crimes are Democrats and Republicans at all? After all, they haven't caught most of them. What if they aren't even (gasp) registered voters? In my own independent way, I was being just as biased as I'd accused Smash and Indepundit of being. Rather hypocritical of me, dont'cha think? This punditing is harder than it looks.
But back to the crime scene. Suspiciously enough, there appear to be no stories of people vandalizing Ralph Nader signs. Could he be the culprit? Or are would-be Nader sign thieves so convulsed with laughter at the idea of a Nader presidency that they can't muster the strength to pull the stake from the lawn? Or maybe Nader doesn't actually have any signs. After all, the Green party probably doesn't believe in crowding out the beauty of nature with advertising. Then again, what about the Deaniacs?
And what about the original vandalism that perhaps started it all, back when George W. Bush first entered office? As I recall, Clinton staffers were supposedly removing the "W" key from the PC keyboards in the White House staff offices. Eventually they were accused of slashing wires, trashing offices and doing at least 10,000 dollars worth of damage.
Well it turns out that it never quite happened that way. The GAO conducted it's own investigation, (which reportedly cost 200,000 itself) and with the exception of some minor sign posting and removal of a few W's, came to the conclusion "
...found no evidence of vandalism, no evidence of wires slashed, no evidence of equipment damaged, and no evidence or anything to match the allegations."It even turned out to be something of a tradition with reports of minor silliness happening during all recent transitions in the Presidency.
Nevertheless, here are some helpful hints for Campaign sign posting:
How to foil vandals
• Tape your political bumper sticker facing out on an inside car window.• Put a placard in your home window to avoid vandalism to yard signs.
• Don't put signs in public rights of way — it's illegal.
Source: Alma Sanford, headquarters manager, Davidson County Democrats, via the Tennessean
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