A storm worth avoiding

As news makes its way through conservative newspapers, blogs, and New York media that a group presumed to be liberals and immigrants-rights supporters bumrushing the stage at Columbia University where Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist was speaking, it becomes dreadfully apparent how important public relations, in the less literal sense, are (as if you didn't know).

Immigration is obviously an incredibly complex concept -- full of emotion, stats, and created realities -- and polls can be used to make arguments for nearly any position. So while I won't try to say, one way or the other, whether a good number of Americans support what the Minutemen are doing, they are certainly not universally beloved.

But those people who decided that their contribution to "free speech" was to storm a stage and shout over this Minuteman assured, for some time, that they're position elicits no sympathy; that the Minutemen are the victims here.