The Times dispatched its political personality profiler and snarkster-in-chief Mark Leibovich to Florida to report on the hot race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Mel Martinez. In the course of his report, Leibovich ran into a conservative in a parking lot who showed "contempt" for the New York Times. (Wonder why?)Moderate Gov. Charlie Crist looks set to battle insurgent conservative Marco Rubio in the Republican primary in late August. Leibovich's piece, "The First Senator From the Tea Party?" which will appear  in the Times Magazine next Sunday, described the reporter's attendance at a Tea Party rally in Orlando, from which he dutifully filed anecdotes about racist attacks, bullying, and birther-paranoia on the part of conservatives.First, Leibovich sat down with the "embattled Republican" Crist, the "pragmatist" battling "ideological purists" in his own party:

To many Republicans, the governor's biggest sin was his support for the Obama administration's $787 billion economic-stimulus package. That's what comes up the most, although a fair number of conservatives also blame Crist for his seemingly decisive endorsement of John McCain three days before the Florida primary in the 2008 presidential campaign, effectively handing the state to an eventual nominee for whom many conservatives had little use. They see Crist's career as pockmarked with instances of consensus-seeking, deal-making and bipartisanship -- three particularly vulgar notions to a simmering Tea Party movement on the right. Conservatives have tagged Crist as being part of that pariah breed of Republican today: a "moderate." Or worse.

Blogs on both sides of the political aisle exploded last night, as first reports rolled in about a union event breaking out at a fight. That’s an exaggeration, of course.  However, here are the facts, as far as we’re able to tell.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL) scheduled a last-minute town hall meeting for yesterday evening, essentially tagging along on Florida State Rep. Betty Reed’s (D) already-scheduled town hall meeting.  This meeting was also officially hosted by the Service Employees international Union, a highly politically active union that is a reliable ally of liberal Democratic politicians.  Between RedState.com and conservative talk-radio king Rush Limbaugh, local conservative activists found out about this meeting and decided to crash the party.

The first reports came in through the Tampa Bay local media, depicting a rowdy town hall meeting interrupted by conservative activists demanding to be heard.  This was a fairly straightforward story which contained simple quotes and facts, written by one William March.  There was one quote which was particularly intriguing:

Seriously, do the kindly folks at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's editorial board even know what the definition of the word logic is? Their headline read, "Hysteria fuels sales of guns and ammo," the Sun-Sentinel takes Floridians to task for being so stupid as to be afraid of Obama's gun banning plans, claiming that Obama "didn't do it." But, even after telling readers no one wants to ban guns, the piece ends with the Sun-Sentinel editorial board advocating for the banning of guns! So the message is, no one wants a gun ban but we should ban guns? This is the sort of logical disconnect that fuels the very "hysteria" that the paper is claiming to want to dispel.

And this ridiculous about face isn't the only illogical idea or uninformed claim the piece makes, either. Just about every word in this piece proves that the editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel is wholly uninformed about the Constitution and the technical aspects of firearms, not to mention being uninformed about the various gun banning bills floating about Congress and the several states at this very moment.

Maybe it's because the election is over. Or perhaps the fact that Bush is no longer President. It also might simply be because Miami Hurricane news editor, Chelsea Isaacs, hasn't been sufficiently indoctrinated yet.

Whatever the reason, her recent article about Karl Rove's visit to the University of Miami was surprisingly fair and quoted students who were quite impressed by the erstwhile Evil Genius.

The “campaign architect,” as he is commonly called, built a case against President Barack Obama’s order to close Guantanamo, an overseas CIA detention center where terrorists and other “enemy combatants” are held. Obama’s order could enable terrorists to be tried in U.S. courts, to be given undeserved rights afforded American citizens and could cause damaging long-term effects, Rove said.

“One year from now, Gitmo won’t be closed,” Rove said. “If it is, there will be an uproar in the U.S. about where to put these people.”