From Tea Party Central

Otherwise known as the Westin Hotel, where I've come to eat dinner and file a brief report. Thanks to Barbara Espinosa, Rick Moran and VodkaPundit for helping me cover the Tea Party live. More reports at The Sundries Shack, GayPatriot, Nice Deb, Weasel Zippers and Instapundit
Will have full coverage later. Now, dinner. I've left Myers The Blog Intern alone with Barbara, which could be dangerous . . .

UPDATE: Dan Riehl showed up at the Westin hotel bar, and Matthew Vadum is expected soon. Right now, I'm blogging from Barbara Espinosa's room. NTTAWWT. IYKWIMAITYD.

Meanwhile, VodkaPundit did a telephone interview with Barbara -- on my cell phone. And Vodka also responds to a particularly idiotic attack. A week ago, I wrote:

Ace finally lost patience with LGF's Charles Johnson over the Van Jones controversy. In exasperation, Ace's cri de coeur was: "This is like arguing with a woman of the more irrational sort."

If you're too crazy for Ace, you're just too damned crazy. CJ tried to purge both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. You can't build a coalition by the process of subtraction.

UPDATE II: BTW, the "particularly idiotic attack" is the same kind of attack that is being made on Joe Wilson, whose left-wing enemies get a rebuttal from Stogie at Saberpoint and also here and here.

Meanwhile, the friends of liberty keep gathering in the Westin Hotel bar. Darlene Thornton of Savannah, Ga. -- who traveled more than 800 miles for the rally -- was wearing a T-shirt with this motto: "I'll keep my guns, freedom and money. . . . You can keep the Change."

Nancy Jo Taylor of Highland Village, Texas, drove 1,500 miles to attend the rally. "I wanted to represent my mother, who is 98 . . . We're upset with this administration, and the lies, and the overspending."

Well, my friends await me downstairs at the bar, so you'll excuse me. I am a social conservative . . .

UPDATE III: Alan Colmes, you suck. "Corporate push," my left butt-cheek. I'm partying with the 9/12 people tonight and they are the heart and soul of grassroots America.

UPDATE IV: Well, I just got home from D.C., and might as well finish what I've started. Demonstrating that the best "conservative" comments are always from anonymous a-holes, let's look at "MPH" in the comment field at Vodka's:

Well, Stacy McCain does write for Taki Magazine and VDare…two absolutely disgusting (and racist) publications. McCain is openly friendly with the editor of Taki Mag, Richard Spencer, an avowed white nationalist (Spencer proudly told me this himself the one time I was disgraced to meet him – the guy is a f-ing lunatic and anyone who calls themselves a friend of this creature has serious issues of their own).
…and never mind that Stacy McCain is a member of the League of the South. What else do you need to know? Come on Stephen…you are one of the great ones. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Don’t close your eyes to this filth.
-- MPH, 3:41 p.m.

Richard Spencer, as I have written before, is a young radical intellectual who has read too much Nietzsche. Should he be shunned therefore? He was a graduate student at Duke during the lacrosse-team "rape" hoax, and I suppose that might radicalize anyone. VDare.com is run by Peter Brimelow, author of the excellent book, Alien Nation, and the site has carried Michelle Malkin's column for years. More "MPH":

But you owe it to yourself to look beyond the interactions you’ve had with McCain at the DNC and CPAC. While Charles is being unfair to the tea-partiers as a whole, he isn’t far off in his assessment of McCain. For the credibility of PJTV and PJM, you owe it to the institution you are helping to build to know which people are leeching off your success for their own desultory means.
League of the South…League of the South! The “reformed” KKK (or maybe they’re just in remission). Taki Magazine. VDare. Sick Sick Sick.
I look up to you as a rational classically liberal commentator (like a Glenn Reynolds with great comedic timing). It is painful to see this defense of what seems so obviously indefensible.
-- MPH 4:15 p.m.

"League of the South! League of the South!" Don't you love these "conservatives" who get their talking-points from the Southern Poverty Law Center?

Notice that anonymous a-hole "MPH" tells Steven not to judge me based on actual acquaintance. Nor should you talk to people who actually know me and know anything about the background of this controversy. You might talk to novelist Tito Perdue, who has known me for about 15 years and is familiar with the background, or you might talk to Pierre-Rene Noth, who was my editor at the Rome News-Tribune from 1991-97.

Is Stacy McCain crazy? Oh, yeah. Is Stacy McCain, dangerous? Well, there's his firework habit, but . . .

Is Stacy McCain racist? Define the term. That's exactly the problem, as I've been saying for years. "Racist" has been re-defined to mean, "Anyone who disagrees with a liberal." And the accusation requires the accused to prove a negative, you see?

These attacks against me are made by people who don't know who my friends are, who don't know who has partaken of my hospitality or benefitted from my assistance, who don't know my children or my children's friends. They are, in other words, completely ignorant, and so arrogantly stupid as to repeat the ignorant accusations of others, based purely on some sort of ideological litmus test which they -- in their imagined superiority -- feel qualified to administer.

Why engage with people who think that way, except to point out that they think that way? Why should I be compelled to defend myself against such "ransom note" smears? And who is "MPH," except an anonymous a-hole trying to recycle old left-wing attacks on me?

Meanwhile, the commenters are telling me that Charles Johnson himself has now attacked me by way of responding the Vodka, so I guess I'll deal with that now. So much for turning in early so I'd be well-rested to write my 800-word news article due tomorrow afternoon . . . sigh.

Remember: There are five A's in "raaaaacist."