Saturday's New Orleans GOP Beatdown Update

As more time passes from the brutal assault and battery against GOP fundraiser Allee Bautsch (broken leg) and her boyfriend, Joe Brown (broken nose, broken jaw, concussion) after a GOP fund-raising dinner in New Orleans last week, more details keep emerging. And while the details fill themselves in, the overall picture gets slightly hazier.

Previously, blogger Pat Dollard reported that a NOPD official spokesman had confirmed that the insults hurled at Bautsch and Brown were political in nature, giving strength to the argument that the assault was politically motivated. The spokesman later walked back that allegation to Dollard, not precisely denying it but refusing to confirm it.

Later, the officer issued an absolute denial, saying that the insults were more general in tone, but said the possibility of a political motive is part of the investigation. In other words, they haven’t ruled out that theory.

Dollard has yet to issue a followup piece.

It’s also been stated that te thugs who put Brautsch and Brown in the hospital followed them from the restaurant, which makes the “random attack by roving thugs so common in large urban areas that are governed by astonishingly corrupt Democratic machines” theory a bit harder to buy into. Toss in that Brennan’s is located practically across the street from a police station, and the notion that these thugs were just loitering and waiting for someone to give an utterly non-partisan beatdown to is further eroded.

As for robbery as the motive (after all, “mugging” is defined as “an assault where the primary goal is robbery,”): the infamous photo of Brautsch and Brown immediately after the attack, talking with a police officer, shows Brautsch’s purse serving as a pillow under her head, and Brown’s rather expensive-looking watch still on his left wrist. If their assailants were robbers, they were very poor robbers — but excellent beat-down artists.

Back at the Hayride, the blog that has been all over this story, there’s a report that another attendee of the fundraiser at Brennan’s was also attacked while leaving the event. Louisiana GOP Chairman Roger Villere, Jr. says he tried to leave Brennan’s with about half a dozen friends, but protesters blocked the front doors. They left through the kitchen, but they were spotted by the mob peace-loving demonstrators attempting to exercise their Constitutional rights and pursued until they got into a cab.

Hayride is now putting forth an interesting theory: that the assault and battery was political in nature, but not partisan. In other words, it wasn’t an action by rogue Democrats, but left-wing extremists who gulled some liberals into helping fill out their ranks for the protests, then the extremists took it up a few steps and ventured into physical violence.

I’m not ready to fully sign on to it, but I like it.

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As an explanation, it has an elegance and simplicity that fits the known facts. Some far-left extremist anarchists (probably but not definitively associated with the Iron Rail Gang collective) hear about the fundraiser and decide to give those fascist pig corporate fatcats a taste of People Power. They put out flyers and other forms of publicity to draw young liberals and other leftists all looking to “get in the faces” of the enemy. The expected crowd shows up and makes a bunch of noise, the police come, and most of the crowd is dispersed. (They did what they wanted; they got to “stick it to the man” a little, maybe meet some like-minded spirit of the appropriate sex, and collected a “war story” about how brave they were.

But the core organizers, the anarchists, stick around. They aren’t done.

Villere and his friends try to leave, but duck back inside and go out the back door. The thugs spot them and give chase, but they get away in a cab.

Then Brautsch and Brown come out and start walking. The thugs outnumber them five to two, and Brautsch is a rather petite woman, so they have numbers on their side. The mob shouts insults and cat-calls and other imprecations. They probably figure that Brautsch and Brown will run, they’ll give chase for a bit, and they’ll have another tale of glory.

Sadly, no one tips Brautsch and Brown in to the plan. So Brown does the chivalrous thing, telling Brautsch to run while he tries to hold off the mob. Then Brautsch stumbles, and the “chase” scenario will no longer work.

Well, the mob can’t just back down at this point. Besides, Brown is challenging them, one guy standing against all of them. He’s defending himself and his lady. If the mob were to back down, they’d have to admit that all five of them were scared off by one guy.

So the beatdown commences. Because Brautsch and Brown didn’t stick to the mob’s script and didn’t flee in terror, they get what all Rethuglicans/RepubliKKKans deserve. Brautsch’s leg is broken in five places, requiring extensive surgery, and Brown gets a broken nose, a broken jaw, and a concussion.

But they aren’t robbed. No, these thugs aren’t common thieves. And while it would have been justice for these two young fascists to have their excessive wealth (embodied by her purse and his watch) liberated in the name of The People, that wasn’t what the mob was after. They weren’t Robin Hoods, they were Righteous Avengers.

Just a theory. Just a story. Just a possible explanation. But one that, I think, answers all the facts known at this point, and ties it together with few loose ends.

So no, this wasn’t the “fault” of the Democrats. Or even of the left in general. It was solely the responsibility of the assholes who did the beating.

But it does serve as a serious reminder to the left: this was likely done by extremists on your end of the spectrum. These sociopaths are your fellow-travelers, they agree with you on most issues, and you tend to embrace them as part of your “inclusive” policies and activities. You empower them, you tolerate them, you welcome them into your events and planning and activities.

I’d recommend that the left learn from the Tea Parties held last Thursday. Forewarned that opponents were planning on infiltrating the events in an attempt to discredit the gatherings, some attendees were on the lookout for the fringe nuts. And once the nuts were identified, they were isolated and harassed until they left.

And when some union thugs tried to disrupt the Boston tea party on Wednesday, assaulting attendees as they forced their way through the crowd (and one of the leftists even briefly stormed the stage), not one of the gun nuts and crazed right-wingers hit back against the union “Task Force.”

The left likes to talk about how the right’s fringe is so dangerous, and are being egged on by the mainstream right’s leadership. And here’s some evidence they may be on to something — but it’s their own side’s problem. Their own fringe are putting people in the hospital, and their own leadership is pushing the confrontational rhetoric.

So, liberals. You still have time to think this through. Your own fringe is doing precisely what you’ve been hysterically predicting that the right’s fringe would do, but it hasn’t been conclusively proven yet. Start thinking about how you want to respond.

How much time you have before the New Orleans thugs are identified and charged, no one knows. Maybe today. Maybe never.

Use this time wisely.