InstaPundit:
When I first saw this story on The New York Times Web site, I knew it was bound to run on that newspaper's front page, and it did:
"MONTGOMERY, Ala., Aug. 20 -- They came streaming in from all directions, wearing their crosses and Confederate T-shirts, carrying dog-eared Bibles and bottles of water and enough power bars to last a siege."
But I was immediately skeptical about this "color story," every sentence written as if a punch line lurked just around the corner.
I had seen endless TV footage of the Montgomery protests, and I had noticed not a single Confederate T-shirt, nor any other Confederate memorabilia, for that matter.
Some of the protesters did wear shorts and T-shirts beneath the infernal August sun, but they were mostly middle-aged and elderly people, neatly groomed and, frankly, kind of dull.
Next time I have a surly crowd chasing after me, this is exactly the kind of mob I want it to be.
But by slyly clothing the protesters in "Confederate T-shirts," Times writer Jeffrey Gettleman was pandering to his audience, eliciting snickers by conjuring up a revival of gap-toothed, barefoot, unreconstructed racists.
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