What the hell was he thinking?

Babble on.

I first read about this story at Ravishing Light, although it's all over the blogosphere now.

"They just pounced on us," said Phil Parlock, who took his 11-year-old son, Alex, and 3-year-old daughter, Sophia, to the Democratic rally at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va. Sophia became briefly famous yesterday when an Associated Press photo showing her in tears after Democrats tore her sign to pieces was posted on Matt Drudge's Web site, http://www.drudgereport.com/.

Making a little girl cry is reprehensible. Period. Seeing her in tears makes me angry. I thought about my own little Boo - a valiant soul at three and a half years, but still prone to cry if his favourite-toy-in-the-whole-world-since-five-minutes-ago gets accidentally trashed.

But then I thought some more. I would never take Boo to a political rally. And it would be a cold day in Hell on the far side of never before I took him to a rally for a political opponent, carrying a sign for my candidate.

I mean, as a father, what the hell was Parlock thinking?

Unfortunately, this blog - while wrong in pretty much every other respect - seems to answer that question:

Serial Republican Victim complains for the THIRD straight presidential election of being assaulted and has his family assist.
...
[from the 1996 election] "It must have been a strict Democrat who did this," Parlock
said, feeling the red abrasions on his face. "Everyone with the exception of him was real peaceful about our protest."
...
[from the 2000 election] "I expected some people to take our signs," said Louis, 12. "But I did not expect people to practically attack us."

If I want to piss in the opposition's cornflakes, well, I'm a big enough boy that I can make decisions about what sort of situations to get into, and take the consequences if things get a little rough. My safety, my call. But to drag your toddler into that sort of a mess is just twisted.

The union thug who ripped up Sophia's sign needs a good smack in the head. But so does Sophia's pathologically partisan dad.

Babble off.