What little attention the official media paid to this weekend's demonstration seemed rather disproportionately focused

by: John Hayward
GOOD AFTERNOON TO EVERYONE!
The mainstream media had very little attention to spare for the Million Veterans March on Washington, DC over the weekend. Local media reported attendance in the thousands. The vets stormed memorials barricaded as part of President Obama's Shutdown Theater performances.

The barricades from the World War II memorial ended up stacked in front of the White House beneath a "Don't Tread On Me" flag and a "Return to Sender" sign. Among the demonstrators tearing these barricades down were elderly Greatest Generation vets, and heroes from the War on Terror with prosthetic limbs. Quite a sight! But nobody from the major media outlets seemed eager to point a camera at it.

The ostensibly "shut down," impoverished government mustered an army of riot police, Park Service personnel, and even a helicopter to confront the demonstrators - a very different reception than what "immigration reform activists" received when the National Mall was thrown open for them, and top Democrats spoke at their Jumbotron-decorated rally.

What little attention the official media paid to this weekend's demonstration seemed rather disproportionately focused on one man carrying a Confederate flag. This is the same press corps that assured us every kook and criminal to emerge from the filthy Occupy camps was an "interloper" or "outlier." The shutdown drama is largely a media event for Americans, relatively few of whom have been directly affected by the 17 percent cutback in this massive government's activities. The struggle to control public perception of the spectacle continues. There is encouragement to be found in the media's refusal to dwell on that stack of barricades outside the White House fence, because they're clearly worried about the reaction that would be provoked by telling the full story of Shutdown Theater.