Attention Texans: WaPo Compares Occupy D.C. to the Alamo

December 5th, 2011 11:51 AM

It's possible I missed something in history class, but I'm pretty sure Davy Crockett never urinated in public as a sign of protest.

I say this because the Washington Post's Pamela Constable and Fredrick Kunkle today compared the Occupy D.C. movement to the Texan freedom fighters at the Alamo in today's 25-paragraph front-page story (emphases mine):

The Occupy D.C. campaign, largely peaceful since its launch two months ago, turned confrontational Sunday when police detained 31 protesters during a tense day-long standoff in McPherson Square. It was the first case of mass arrests at the group’s base camp in Washington, and the clash resembled those between police and Occupy protesters in other cities across the country.

The day began with a seemingly minor dispute over a 15-foot-tall wood shelter that protesters put up Saturday night in the park’s grassy southwest corner. But it soon escalated into a noisy downtown disruption — and a psychological turning point in the protests — after a group of demonstrators defied repeated orders by the U.S. Park Police to dismantle and abandon the half-built shed.

During the day, officers arrested 15 demonstrators and charged them with crossing a police line, Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said. Shortly after nightfall, police moved in and detained the protesters who had remained inside the open shed all day, and 16 people were charged with disobeying a lawful police order. One of them also was charged with resisting arrest, indecent exposure and urinating in public.

[...]

Police officials — who have allowed the tent city to remain in a public park — insisted that the building was illegal because it appeared to be a permanent structure and the group had not obtained a permit for it. Whatever the original purpose of the building, it quickly became a lightning rod.

[...]

Although the shelter was constructed under cover of night and created a mood of Alamo-like defiance, Occupy demonstrators said it was not planned to provoke authorities. But the structure created a flash point nonetheless.

Besides a dopey historical analogy, you'll notice that Constable and Kunkle did their level best to treat the Occupiers with kid gloves, starting with the initial reference to the "largely peaceful" nature of the squatters' camp to neutral language that describes conflict as just sort of happening, rather than blaming protesters for being uncooperative and resistant to police enforcing the law.