It's unusual for students at Clemson University in the foothills of South Carolina to get riled up about anything - except football.
Which is why a student protest against the war in Iraq this spring drew so much attention.
To bad it was ALL FAKED.
From the halls of conservative Clemson came a caricature straight out of the fevered mind of Ann Coulter:
"The only person there at the time was a man in a black ski mask, trying to set up a sound system he never did get to work." In addition to the ski mask pulled down to conceal his face, the man wore an athletic shirt displaying the word "CUBA" and a white headband over his ski mask with the word "PEACE" scrawled on it.
"We were a little taken aback," relates Cothran. "He looked like a terrorist."
If the manner and appearance of this lone protest leader weren't disconcerting enough, the signs he displayed gave additional pause. "Abortion Isn't Murder, War Is" read one, with the letters in "War" colored red and dripping like blood. Another banner he would unfurl, crudely spray-painted on a bed-sheet, urged "Free Saddam, Arrest Bush."
So what happens when the perfect strawman argument comes your way? You milk it for all it's worth!
As if on cue, a line of counter-protesters from the College Republicans made their way to Bowman Field, more than a dozen well-scrubbed campus conservatives with signs of their own.
So campus conservatives stand up to a lone protester? Well, maybe not.
Two days later, Clemson officials announced an investigation when the man in the black ski mask was identified as Andrew R. Davis, editor-in-chief of a self-described conservative Clemson magazine. Davis admitted he had organized the rally using a phony name and a shell group he called "Clemson Liberals Against War" (C.L.A.W.), but insists that Clemson officials knew he was using a pseudonym.
And once you get caught, deny everything.
Some observers reported conversations between Davis and some College Republicans even before he removed his mask, suggesting that his intentions were known - or quickly deduced - by at least some of the counter-protesters. Frisina acknowledges that Davis attended some of the College Republican meetings where the counter-demonstration was planned, but insists Davis never revealed his role in fostering the very event they were mapping strategy to counter.