Ahem. And then, when we pull past the main entrance, that over-66 tunnel-thingy, I see that actually, we’re seeing less than half of the people there. The line from the other side extended up to and INto the parking garage and we could not see it’s end. And the other line was 4-5 people wide!

Though from what my friend who was coming in said, part of the reason for the discharge at West Falls Church was they started realizing that people were riding back to Vienna from there…because they couldn’t get on the trains coming in!

And I wink heartily at your considering Ballston and Clarendon suburban – Vienna was my primary station when I lived up there because I lived in fucking Chantilly!

Agreed that equivocation sucks, but we do that so as not to offend white working class voters who are always wary that the urban liberal are caling them dumb bumpkins. Ever since the white blue collar zeitgeist has shifted from Tom Joad towards Archie Bunker, it’s harder to get them to vote for redistributionist policies per se and instead they just slow clap for whatever party is in the minority when things get bad (Russ Feingold is about to lose Wisconsin, fer Chrissakes). Lexington had some good insights into this in the Economist last week. My cynical take is that from a big-picture perspective, this whole moderate discourse meme is, ironically, just a Hail Mary ploy to scare this class away from frothy right-wingers by calling their methods “un-American”. It’s a kind of judo-flip by people like Jon Stewart (and me, I suppose) to attract these maddening swing voters.

Our friend who was coming down from Maryland said she nearly suffocated and they booted everyone off the train at West Falls Church, because the Vienna station was too full of people to be able to discharge anyone there. !!!!!

And I *know* we weren’t the only ones who bailed after seeing the crowds – imagine how big it would have been if we all managed to get there?! Still, we saw lots of fun signs from the people in line, so the afternoon of driving back and forth between Metro stations was worth it.

I often feel that trying to be “moderate” just means the left taking a step to the right most of the time.

2) Although I understand what Stewart was trying to accomplish by doing this, I was…displeased by the false equivalence he drew between the Tea Party and people who think the Tea Party is toxic.

My favorite sign:

http://s-ak.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/terminal01/2010/10/30/17/enhanced-buzz-3270-1288474990-8.jpg