Beth Reinhard Undermines Own Premise.

I like Beth, and think she's been a good addition to the Herald's political coverage.

But in today's column she blows it big-time.

She starts with an exceedingly tired Broder-like premise -- there are two sides to every issue, and the truth lies somewhere in between:

Conjuring the ghosts of the 2000 presidential election, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs this week compared the protesters crashing town hall meetings on healthcare around the country to the ``Brooks Brothers Brigade in Florida.''

Gibbs was referring to the loafer-wearing Republican operatives who stormed the vote recount in Miami-Dade. Not exactly a populist uprising.

But the truth about the recent healthcare protests -- as in most highly charged political debates -- lies somewhere in the middle, in between the Democratic account of angry mobs orchestrated by special interest groups and the Republican portrayal of spontaneous grassroots unrest.

Ok, this doesn't start good.

But let's see her evidence:

Take Stan Bloom, a 67-year-old Navy veteran who was among 100 people who jammed the Lighthouse Point public library on Wednesday during what was scheduled to be routine office hours for the staff of U.S. Rep. Ron Klein.

Bloom is no Brooks Brothers model. He wore his only pair of jeans, flip flops and a ``Tyranny Response Team'' T-shirt he got off a website laden with anti-government conspiracy theories.

Bloom retired in Palm Beach County after running a small construction company in west Texas. He heard about the protest from Klein's Republican campaign rival, Allen West, who circulated an e-mail that said the congressman was hosting a town hall meeting, even though he wasn't.

Bloom is a Republican and West supporter, but says, ``I was there as an American.'' He wants to make sure that proposed healthcare reforms don't interfere with his veteran's benefits, but he has other worries.

``I have a concern that the country is changing, getting farther away from the Constitution, with the federal government getting too big,'' he said.

Beth, how does Stan validate your point?

He purchased his shirt from a virulent fringe website.

For example, here is a poem that is featured on the site that sells Stan's shirt:

The thought police are coming they're coming for me
I thought this was the land, the land of the free?
They read my e-mails and tap my wires they instill fear in us those fucking liars They will fight enemies that they create
They say they are just, no room for debate
Do not challenge their word, challenge their cause
They'll lock you up with little pause
They don't treat our citizens like we deserve
It's only themselves they wish to serve
The global elite are called the new world order
but we hear nothing on the news, only about our border
Mainstream media doesn't tell the whole story
Making it easy to make anybody a tory
We're losing our rights, our God given freedoms
We are all falling to the new world kingdom

Well, it ain't William Blake, but it does make some sober and responsible points.

Also Beth, Stan was encouraged to go by a GOP blast email containing false information.

Whether or not Stan owns more than one pair of jeans is not the point -- the Brooks Brothers riot wasn't class-based. The point was that it was orchestrated and formented by political rivals, as these town-hall protests are.

Beth continues to undermine her own premise later in the article:

Now, talking points and tactics are distributed online.

By who, Beth, by who?

Compare Beth's contradictory column with the NYT today on the same topic, which contains actual reporting to determine who is really behind these "spontaneous protests":

There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

“Become a part of the mob!” said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. “Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!” The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.

“Pack the hall,” said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, “Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

“Get him off his prepared script and agenda,” the memo continued. “Stand up and shout and sit right back down.”

The memo was obtained by the liberal Web site ThinkProgress. Its author, Robert MacGuffie, a founder of the conservative Web site Right Principles, confirmed to The New York Times that the memo was legitimate.

Here's more:

For Representative Steve Kagen, Democrat of Wisconsin, Mr. Gibbs’s criticism rang true.

After he faced heckling during a heated discussion about health care at a forum on Thursday, Mr. Kagen was confronted by a vocal opponent named Heather Blish, who identified herself as “just a mom from a few blocks away” and “not affiliated with any political party.”

When interviewed by the local NBC affiliate, Ms. Blish insisted she was not a member of the Republican Party. But her page on the networking Web site Linked In said she was the vice chairwoman of the Republican Party of Kewaunee County until last year and worked on the campaign of John Gard, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully against Mr. Kagen last year.

And even more:

One of the week’s most raucous encounters occurred Thursday in Tampa, Fla., where roughly 1,500 people attended a forum held by Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Kathy Castor. When the auditorium at the Children’s Board of Hillsborough County reached capacity and organizers had to close the doors, the scene descended into violence.

As Ms. Castor began to speak, scuffles broke out as people tried to push their way in. Parts of her remarks were drowned out by chants of “read the bill, read the bill” and “tyranny,” as a video recording of the meeting showed. Outside the meeting, there were competing chants of “Yes we can” and “Just say no.”

Some of the protesters told local reporters they had been urged to come by a local activist group promoted by the conservative radio and television host Glenn Beck. Others said they had received e-mail messages from the Hillsborough County Republican Party that urged people to speak out against the plan and offered talking points.

Beth, your readers probably would have benefited from this information to determine for themselves just how organic and perfectly ensconced in the middle these protesters really are.