Occupy, smaccupy

I am not smart enough to understand how anyone is being helped by this...

By JAMES TARANTO

(Best of the tube this weekend: Catch us on "The Journal Editorial Report" discussing ObamaCare and Obamaville. Saturday 2 and 11 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel.)

"The Occupy Wall Street protesters had achieved a great deal," the New York Times editorialized on Wednesday. "We worry that [Mayor MIchael Bloomberg's] decision to clear the park of tents could end up quashing the entire protest." The paper claimed that "many of those protesters wanted to stay by obeying laws and respecting the community" and demanded that the mayor "keep his promise to support the protesters' right to speak up about income inequality, especially in the city's financial district."

WCBS-TV

Schoolchildren run the Obamaville gauntlet.

Yesterday the erstwhile denizens of New York's Obamaville called for a day of rage that included disruptions in the Wall Street area, on the subways and at Foley Square, site of the state and federal courthouses. WCBS-TV reports that "some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters just to get to school."
"In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting--some kicking and screaming--CBS 2's Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class," the report continues. "Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The [New York City Police Department] helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted 'follow those kids!' "
"A big failure? No, quite the opposite," writes the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson. "Lower Manhattan was swarming not just with demonstrators and police but with journalists from around the world--and with tourists who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. A small, nonviolent protest had been amplified into something much bigger and more compelling, not by the strength of its numbers but by the power of its central idea."
As we noted Wednesday, a man who reportedly "spent time blending in" with the Obamaville in the nation's capital, was being sought on suspicion of firing a gun at the White House last week. Police arrested the suspect, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, on Wednesday, and they tell the Washington Post that they "found no connection between him and the Occupy D.C. protest." Although Obama was not in the White House at the time the shots were fired, yesterday Ortega-Hernandez was charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

Opinion Journal columnist James Taranto on the latest developments in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

That didn't stop Obamavillians in San Diego from holding a "moment of silence and solidarity" in the alleged shooter's honor. In case you think we're making this up, it was vidoetaped and is viewable at YouTube.
"The good news is that Occupy Wall Street is not going anywhere," writes Richard Schiffman at the Puffington Host. "It is here to stay. . . . OWS is not about supplying readymade answers and political solutions, but about asking the right questions." Those must be questions like: Hey, wouldn't it be fun to harass little children? Or: Shouldn't we show solidarity with a guy who (allegedly) tried to assassinate the president?
"I call Occupy Wall Street a spiritual rather than a political movement," Schiffman says. That's what they called the People's Temple, too--which, before decamping for Guyana, was also a favorite of the left. Chicago's WMAQ-TV reports that Windy City Obamavillians are getting "advice about non-violent protesting" from none other than 1960s terrorist Bill Ayers. One wonders at what point people like Robinson, Schiffman and the Times's editors will change their tune and start pretending they've never heard of these awful people.