Conservative Magazine Brags of Provoking Violence at Air and Space Museum

[TalkingDog]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/08/1024352/-Conservative-Magazine-Brags-of-its-Agent-Provacateurs-Role-in-Provoking-Police-Action-in-DC-?via=siderec

The American Spectator admits to being involved in the precipitation of violence at the Air and Space Museum as a means of discrediting the Occupy Movement.

It has been openly reporting about its "plants" among the protesters and their actions to get certain things to occur. Included in this, today, was the presence - and central role played by - of Patrick Howley, its Assistant Editor, in sparking the police reaction and violence.

Quote: Standoff in D.C.

By Patrick Howley on 10.8.11 @ 6:24PM

American Spectator reporter pepper-sprayed at Washington protest.

The fastest-running protesters charged up the steps of Washington's National Air and Space Museum Saturday afternoon to infiltrate the building and hang banners on the "shameful" exhibits promoting American imperialism. As the white-uniformed security guards hurried to physically block the entrances, only a select few -- myself included -- kept charging forward.

[elleng]

1. Thought so!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=5020468&mesg_id=5020554

[TalkingDog]

2. nobody is surprised

yet yesterday i was smacked down for posting an article that suggested this might start to happen

[elleng]

4. And note DU comments yesterday;

I may have been only one on the thread even suggesting a connection.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=5020468&mesg_id=5020554

[redgiant]

3. Link to his full article here

After following the link, click on link to "patrick howley articles"

http://spectator.org/people/patrick-howley/all

[starroute]

5. Patrick Howley may have been a plant to begin with

As I noted on another thread about this incident, I've just been googling furiously on him, checking the people lookup sites, and so forth.

The only information available on Howley is that he became an assistant editor at the American Spectator in June and began contributing articles.

There is *nothing* earlier.

There is no prior history or writing credits either at the Spectator or in his LinkedIn entry. Nothing about past accomplishments as a college Republican or conservative intern.

Nothing.

This is extraordinary. Your local auto mechanic might not show up in web searches -- but writers always do.

For all practical purposes, Patrick Howley did not exist before last June.

And I find that extremely interesting.

[kag]

6. Wow. This guy is a real turd...

From the rest of the blog (I bolded some parts for emphasis):

"...As the museum doors approached, all of a sudden liberal shoes started marching less forcefully, and the crowd split into two factions -- those rushing the doors, and those staying behind.

He just doesn't get it that the "crowd" didn't want to cause trouble. Only HE did.

"But as far as anyone knew I was part of this cause -- a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator -- and I wasn't giving up before I had my story.

The DEFINITION of "infiltrator". And he ADMITS it so shamelessly.

Under a cloud of pepper spray I forced myself into the doors...I strained to glance behind me at the dozens of protesters I was sure were backing me up, and then I got hit again, this time with a cold realization: I was the only one who had made it through the doors. As two guards pointed at me and started running, I dodged a circle of gawking old housewives and bolted upstairs.
...

"Minutes earlier, I had been among those blocking major D.C. roads chanting "We're unstoppable" -- and from beneath my unshaven left-wing altar (sic) ego, I worried that we might actually be. But just as the lefties couldn't figure out how to run their assembly meeting (many process points, I'm afraid to report, were left un-twinkled), so too do they lack the nerve to confront authority. From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside the museum.

It never occurs to him that he was the only one who WANTED to get inside the building. He was the only one who WANTED to "confront authority."

...

"As I scrambled away from the scene of my crime, a police officer outside the museum gates pointed at my eyes, puffed out his chest, and shouted: "Yeah, that's right. That's right." He was proud that I had been pepper-sprayed, and, oddly, so was I. I deserved to get a face full of high-grade pepper, and the guards who sprayed me acted with more courage than I saw from any of the protesters. If you're looking for something to commend these days in America, start with those guards.

"More protests are planned for D.C. Sunday, with the internal aim of keeping this disruptive movement going into the work week."

It's only "disruptive" because people like him are making it so in order to "get a story".