December 23, 2009 03:52 AM UTC

"Queers Against Obama" Vandal Pleads Guilty

• 8 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

Closing out a story we spent a depressing amount of time with last August, the Denver Post:

Activist Maurice Joseph Schwenkler, 24, pleaded guilty Monday to a second-degree misdemeanor for smashing windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters last summer.

He received one year of probation and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution for the Aug. 25 incident at the party headquarters at West Eighth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, according to the Denver district attorney’s office…

Initially, Democratic Party officials blamed conservative opponents of health care reform for stoking animosity directed at Democrats.

Then it became known that Schwenkler had previously worked for a Democratic candidate.

Conservatives characterized the attack as an attempt to frame Republicans with the blame.

Bash Back protested the Republican and Democratic national conventions last year.

We said at the time that Colorado Democratic Party chair Pat Waak committed a major error by publicly inferring blame so quickly–an error that was seized upon by Republicans once the identity of “Ariel Attack,” who briefly knocked on doors for a Democrat-aligned 527 during the ’08 cycle for $500, became known. Waak’s presumption is a big reason we’re still talking about this.

But Waak’s faux pas doesn’t excuse the totally indefensible rewriting of the facts that occurred in the wake of this story, and apparently continues, with conservative pundits like Michelle Malkin conveniently forgetting on national television that this person was a member of a group called “Queers Against Obama”–an anarchist outfit more aligned with the “Recreate ’68” protesters who vowed to shut down the Democrats’ convention last year than, you know, actual Democrats. But of course, if it wasn’t an ‘inside job,’ then this story has no value to Republicans–can’t have inconvenient details like “Queers Against Obama” distracting from this ‘Democrat hoax,’ right?