Profile in Cowardice

Local "librarian" and Olmsted County DFL Party "director" Frank W. Hawthorne feigns courage as he derides those who choose to post anonymously at the Rochester Post-Bulletin online comment pages. It also seems he has become somewhat of a cyber mouth piece for the local DFL as of late. Hawthorne, a pious and self-important liberal (Is there any other kind?) posts under his own name and visage, which is his choice. We are not all as good-looking and fashionable (gotta love those sweater vests he wears year round) as Frank, so it is understandable that not everyone would do the same.
Besides, we all know how intolerant, hateful and vindictive liberals are. Several of the more conservative online posters have expressed concern that if their identities are known, they may face retaliation for their opinions in the form of vandalism or character assassination in the community. Since my identity is known (I post under "paleocon"), I have experienced some of the liberal ire. A couple of years ago, one of these courageous liberals copied and pasted my online comments to paper, put them in a manilla envelope and slid it under the door of the Human Resources department at RCTC after hours. If you guessed it that that courageous act was done anonymously, you know liberals quite well.

The picture above and the inset below are a display of Frank's peculiar brand of liberal courage. Last year, Congressman Tim Walz's yellow (brown would have been more fitting) shirts thought it civil, courageous and appropriate to heckle then First District Congressional Candidate Brian Davis during the Rochesterfest parade. When I showed up with my camera to document their asinine and intolerant behavior, they were understandably reluctant to resume it. Granted, these are interns in their late teens or early twenties. I may put their behavior in the context of the stupidity of youth, not as a justification, but as an explanation, though young Republicans do not seem to behave that way in public.




What surprised me was to see Frank Hawthorne as a part of the group. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been. Hawthorne was wearing a red Tina Liebling shirt (a LIEbrarian supporting Tina LIEbling, how appropriate). Unlike Tim Walz's young hecklers, Frank and his female companion chose to hide their faces, which hardly demonstrates any courage of their liberal convictions. What was Frank hiding from? Certainly not his own shameful behavior. Regardless, whenever you read Frank howling about how cowardly the anonymous posters over at the P-B online comment line supposedly are, remember to mention the Rochesterfest parade incident last year when Frank Hawthorne hid his shameful behavior behind kids. Courageous indeed.