Most Ridiculous Article of the Day

Yesterday...Drudge posted an image of a young girl crying after her Bush/Cheney sign had been torn up at a Democratic Rally.



Today, The Washington Timesis running a story about this "tragic" event. Now I know that The Washington Times is a Conservative newspaper and that taking things from 3 year olds and destroying them is very Grinchy. But can we please look at this from a point of reason?

Let's see...This was a Democratic Rally in support of the Kerry/Edwards ticket and the dad showing up with his 3 and 11 year old children to protest is ludicrous. Is it his right? Sure, he has the right to protest speech, but he is hauling around these children (one a near infant) with the obvious intent of trying to defray criticism. Either that or he wants to bring these children closer to the comfort and safety of large crowds. So they hold a sign up supporting an opposing candidate and a Kerry supporter tears it up. Good for him. I would be surprised if this was a Bush rally and a Kerry supporter went around hunting and assailing young children, but that wasn't the case.

As if all that wasn't ridiculous enough, let's look at some of the language from the Post piece.

Sophia is the youngest of 10 children in a proudly patriotic family.

Are they the only patriotic people in the crowd? What does the fact that they are proudly patriotic have to do with anything? I am sure the painter's union guys who tore up the sign are patriotic, even protectionist. Could this be a sign of article bias? Let's look for other clues...

Anti-war demonstrators have complained in recent weeks that they have been manhandled by security agents at Bush-Cheney campaign events.

So this act is the equivalent of being "manhandled by security agents"? I dunno...Did Kerry/Edwards Secret Service guys destroy these signs or did the crowd? Did Sophia have eggs/paint she wanted to spray on Edwards like the Anti-War protesters often do?

As I said before, I know that being mean to kids is...well, mean. I also know that the Times is a Conservativish paper. But is this really news? How does this help me inform my vote intelligently? How does this being covered help deliberation? Or better yet, how does it help voters overcome what is an ever more rancorous partisan divide?