I don't do many diaries because usually by the time I've written them, someone's beat me to the punch. That and there are so many talented and astute people here, I figure kos world will be just fine without my meager contributions. But sometimes things are too funny to pass up and while this won't be the most issue critical diary of the day, well what the hell.
Over at Huffpo, there's an article up about Obama's incredible turnout in Portland the other day. It seems the fright wing is apoplectic at the idea that he could draw 75,000 people. Jealous I guess, they contend that it can only be because the crowd hung around after a rock concert was performed by the local indie artists.
From the Huffpo article:
Rightward critics of Barack Obama continue to be all a-flutter over the fact that the Illinois Senator's massive rally in Portland, which drew over 75,000 people, was preceded by a free rock concert by area musicians Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Moen, who are better known to indie rock fans as The Decemberists (though they were not billed as such at the rally). As the National Review's Jim Geraghty says, "Now, I'm sure Obama would draw a big crowd either way, but wasn't that worth mentioning in the coverage?"
Now they may be very popular area performers, but apparently their average crowd is about 1200 people. But maybe the plot thickens...seems the artists sometimes perform as a group called "The Decembrists" which was also a group who:
...are named for the Russian Decemberist Revolt of 1825 and have courted controversy by occasionally playing the National Anthem of the Soviet Union in concert - though that has little to do with politics and more to do with the whimsical, baroque backstory that lead singer and Victorian-era fiction enthusiast Colin Meloy has constructed as the band's backstory ("The band's official biography, keeping up their reputation for intentionally over-the-top grandiloquence, describes how they met in a Turkish bath. A footnote following the biography claims, 'The Decemberists travel exclusively by Dr. Herring's Brand Dirigible Balloons'").
But wingers don't generally appreciate irony or humor. So, "my friends", no doubt we can expect a total freak out by the wingers next time there's a "BaRock" concert which will of course have underlying subversive motives ( they do know that the USSR is kaput yes? )
But I think Obama was wearing his lapel pin. Whew.
Right-Wing Obama Critics Obsess Over 'Rock Concert Conspiracy'