What I Didn't See Last Night (And I'm Glad Someone Else Did)

I left the St Louis Tea Party protest early last night. I was out there with my four children (missing my husband and my stepson) joining in protest of wasteful stimulus spending. We were gathered in Forest Park, just West of the History Museum and nearly directly across the street from the Carnahan home. Because of the two crowds gathered, one to protest Obama and one to catch a glimpse of their hero, we had to park nearly a quarter of a mile from where we stood. 


Just as darkness fell, just as we realized that the President and his motorcade would be arriving shortly, one child began complaining of a headache and two began doing a synchronized potty dance. I knew that it was time to go, so I got our things together and disentangled the kids from the crowd. We began the trek towards the car, and as we reached the edge of the crowd, Van Harvey stepped out and without question walked with us to the car. 


Sounds like a nice gesture, right? The gentlemanly thing to do? Wait until you find out what I didn't see...

This is what happened almost immediately after my departure. Not really a surprise. More on the story here: http://bigjournalism.com/dloesch/2011/10/04/obama-supporters-cuss-at-tea-partiers-their-kids-call-black-congressional-candidate-uncle-tom/#more-226132

I didn't see the crowd coming from the "blindly-support-Obama" end of the street. But they were headed for the big target, Martin Baker. They were headed for the guy they could easily hit with racial slurs and epithets. What could they possibly want with me?

I also didn't see the two or three Obama supporters who broke formation and headed toward me and my kids as we left the crowd. Van Harvey did.