Demonstrators Swarm Around Rove's Home (washingtonpost.com)
"Memo to self: Move to gated community"

At least that's what I imagine Karl Rove is thinking this morning, after this happened:

"Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants."

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The demonstrators were from a Chicago-based coalition of various groups whose name I will not reproduce because I don't want to give them any publicity. They have been around since the early 1970s and have done this exact thing many times. Here's a paragraph from their web page, although I won't link to it:

"Direct action is a way to be heard. NPA does not employ professional lobbyists, nor does it have access to the halls of power. NPA has people power. When someone in a position of power refuses to meet with NPA leaders, NPA responds with an action. An action means dozens of busloads of neighborhood people showing up at someone's office or front lawn with a bullhorn and a demand for the target to meet with NPA. Previous direct action events include bringing over a thousand people to the homes of Andrew Cuomo, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Sen. Phil Gramm(R-TX); Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan."

Faced with tactics like this, influential people think long and hard about living in gated communities. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rush Limbaugh, and many other celebrities and politicians live in them already. Here's an object lesson in why. You have three choices. One is to put up with this kind of thing until the police arrive and chase them off. The second is to move someplace where it can't happen. The third is to solve it yourself by appearing on the front steps with a big dog and a shotgun. Rove chose #1 and probably wishes he had chosen #2. I would have chosen #3, but I think in DC that would make me the criminal.

This sort of activism encourages, and practically requires, the powerful to secede from society and head for a fortified compound. These are airhead tactics, in my book. Short-sighted, offensive, narcissistic, and destructive.