GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has been roundly excoriated in the media for the "toxic" suggestion that Occupy Wall Street protesters need to stop freeloading, take a bath, and get a job. Yet in a sympathetic Style section photo essay today entitled "The March: Occupy protesters trek 231 miles from New York to the White House," Washington Post editors highlighted as the march's poster boy one "Dylan Bozlee of Hilo, Hawaii."
Bozlee is a self-described anarchist and University of Hawaii dropout who, the Post notes, "said he'd rather travel across American than get a job." "Do I want to work? Only if I wanted a home, wife, kids and a dog. If not, I think you're ruining your life," Bozlee told the Post.
Before the march Bozlee taught "passerby about the concept of warfare by the lower classes against the upper class" at the Occupy Wall Street squatters' camp at Zuccotti Park.
Post staffer Elizabeth Flock noted that the march started on November 9 with 21 hikers and "a $3,000 check from Occupy Wall Street." But alas, "the marchers soon found they didn't need the money, as they received donations of food and cash, cigarettes and deodorant from local residents and passerby."
In other words, the group has successfully freeloaded off the generosity of strangers practically the entire march. Strangers who, I'm sure, shower in the morning before heading off to work.
The Style section's coverage this morning took up most of pages C1 and C9 and was comprised of six photos with captions as well as an annotated map of the route.
This isn't the first time the Post has promoted the Occupy movement. On November 10, the Post devoted nearly four pages of puffery about Occupy D.C. in a special "Occupied Style" section.
