Courtesy Alternet:

It was supposed to be day of great drama in our nation’s capital. Right-wing activists promised a captivating protest taken from a left-wing playbook, with Tea Party activists acting out the part of dying patients in the halls of Senate office buildings. And one of their stalwart leaders was to address a luncheon at the National Press Club — an event that would have heralded the arrival of the Tea Party movement into the mainstream. Neither event came off.

The Tea Party Patriots’ Senate event promised to be strangely reminiscent of Code Pink’s guerrilla-theater “die-ins.” The Tea Partiers even named their event “Code Red.” Alas, with limited enthusiasm for such artistic tactics among the anti-Obama crowd, the plug was pulled on the die-in, and the activists simply lobbied their senators.

Dick Armey, chairman of the lobbying group FreedomWorks, which has been instrumental in the ginning up of right-wing protests against health-care reform, planned to announce the formation of a new political action committee at a luncheon meeting at the National Press Club. But Armey’s speech to reporters was canceled for apparent lack of interest, allowing him time to get to address a Capitol Hill rally staged by Americans for Prosperity that looked small compared to last month’s protest on the eve of the House health-care vote.

The die-in was apparently dependent on the assemblage of some 1,000 protesters called for by TPP activist Mark Meckler — too tall an order for a morning call during the holiday season. More than 1,000 activists would later assemble on Capitol Hill for a rally, thanks to buses supplied by Americans For Prosperity, the other major astroturfing group that organizes protests against health-care reform. (Participants did have to pay a fee to ride.)

Yet, even in its attenuated state, the Tea Party activists’ day on Capitol Hill had its moments.

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