Tony Blankley Rebuts Arianna on 'Undertones of Violence' at CPAC

Arianna Huffington just keeps slamming our Olbermann floor mats. Plugging her own appearance on the public-radio show Left, Right, and Center (based at Santa Monica NPR station KCRW), the Huffington Post blurb writer suggested CPAC was based in Texas: "Taking the temperature of the conservative GOP: To judge from their conference in Austin, they're quite cheery, yelling Run Dick Run to Dick Cheney and stomping with glee on floor mats that bare Keith Olbermann's." [?]

About 21 minutes into the podcast, Arianna dragged out the same line, but this time Tony Blankley wasn’t having it at all:

HUFFINGTON: Also the undertones of violence, there were -- 

BLANKLEY: There were no undertones of violence.

HUFFINGTON: Oh, come on. There was even a punching bag for John McCain. There were pinatas with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid’s on it, and in order to get the candy, you had to break them apart. There were mats with Keith Olbermann’s and Chris Matthews’ faces on them. And there’s today, on Friday, um, you had the sort of recommendation that get a big 9-iron and hit the window out of government, like what is that? Isn’t that violence?

BLANKLEY: This is part of this ridiculous attempt to turn those who are in favor of limited government into inducers of anarchic violence. We saw that with the lunatic who flew the plane into the building in Texas, and MSNBC and so many of them were saying this, he’s part of the Tea Party movement. He’s nothing. He’s a lefty. He’s a lunatic. I really get tired of this attempt to foist this appearance of violence on a movement that’s been remarkably peaceable.

Blankley’s right. Whenever conservatives gather and rally, there aren’t mass arrests or assault-and-battery convictions. There’s not massive "civil disobedience" or property damage. The mat argument keeps ending up lame.

[Hat tip: Dan Gainor]