Up to the Minuteman

Well, I kinda had a hunch the numbers of "Minutemen" might fall a little short of expectations.

Wouldn't you know it, journalists outnumber the Minutemen so far in Arizona, where only 120 of the supposed 1,000 managed to show:

About 400 people attended the opening day of the Minuteman Project Friday, coming from states as far as Pennsylvania and Tennessee to protest a lack of proper border enforcement.

Nearly half the gathered crowd was reporters, photographers and cameramen. Minuteman media liaison Mike McGarry put the number of volunteers at 120 or more.

"I wish I could shoot a picture without a journalist in it," one cameraman was heard to grumble as reporters darted from one volunteer to another.

There were a number of anti-project protesters as well. This is especially clear from reading this Freeper's-eye view of the goings-on:

The rousing speeches ended and I found myself outside amid the din of the crazy protestors. I tried to carry on a conversation with someone right in front of the building rented for the MMP but it was impossible because of the noise. I grabbed one of the ACLU Legal Observers to file a complaint against the protestors and she laughed me off. I searched out another one and actually got him to write up a formal complaint. I explained that the MMP's freedom of speech and right to peaceable assembly were being infringed by the disrupting protestors. He wrote it all down and said he would see what they could do with my complaint. I urged several others to do the same thing - to file a complaint - and several did.

Such sensitive folks. Lord knows they would never engage in disruptive activities.

I did get a kick out of the response from the mayor of Douglas when Minutemen organizer Chris Simcox accused him of spreading Aryan Nations recruitment fliers calling for members to participate:

Chris Simcox, the editor of a local newspaper and a project organizer, has refuted any link between the Minutemen and white supremacists or any other racist organizations. Simcox has accused Douglas Mayor Ray Borane, a frequent critic, of distributing the fliers in an attempt to smear the project.

"I wonder what he's smoking," the mayor replied. "He has no idea the kinds of people they're going to be attracting."

Well, actually, he probably has a pretty good idea. Now, Michelle Malkin?