There WAS No Mob
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal has some words of praise for Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen's approach to crafting the state budget - via meetings open to the public.

The budget hearings send an appealing message after years of acrimony over state finances. Bredesen says the public hearings are intended to show taxpayers that no fiscal plots are being hatched behind closed doors. The people who pay the bills have a right to see that. Public confidence in state government hit a low point in summer 2001, when a mob protesting an income tax proposal broke windows in the State Capitol building. Protesters egged on by talk radio hosts circled the Capitol complex with car horns blaring. It has been a long, slow climb from that dark day to the tentative harmony that now exists.

It's all good - except for one glaring lie.

THERE WAS NO MOB.

I know because I was there. Familes were there with children, with babies in strollers, waving flags and placards and, yes, loudly yelling in protest of the proposed income tax, and in protest of the fact that the Sundquist administration was using state troopers to bar the public from the state capitol building while allowing lobbyists in to lobby legislators on the eve of a potential vote on the tax. One protestor, knocking hard on a locked capitol door, cracked a window. She paid for the repair.

The Sundquist administration claimed that a window in the governor's office was broken by a thrown object, but that allegation has never been substantiated with physical proof. In fact, the allegation has been undermined by the ever-changing story as the allegedly broken window was alleged to have been broken by a stick. No, it was a rock. Er., it was a brick. Yeah, a brick. That's the ticket.

But a rock is not a stick is not a brick, and though the media reported the rock landed at the feet of a legislator who was in Sundquist's office chambers, the media never showed a photo of the rock. Or the stick. Or the brick. Which strikes me as exceedingly odd - a news media bent on portraying noisy-but-peaceful protestors as a "mob" wouldn't have missed the chance to show the world the rock or brick or stick the "mob" used to break that window. (Now that I think of it - I don't recall seeing a news report showing the broken window, either...)

Yet the claim that the window had been shattered by rock-throwing mob was used as the trigger to call out dozens of state troopers and Metro Nashville police, who barred the public from accessing the capital and blocked streets to make it difficult for people to get to the capital.

But ... no rock, stick or brick was ever produced. I doubt there was a rock, brick or stick. There was no mob, either, and no one who was there and is honest claims otherwise.

UPDATE: The July 13, 2001, edition of The Tennessean carried a story titled "Crowd hurls rocks, rhetoric to protest tax," a headline that implies many rocks were being thrown, though the story admits in the lead that only one rock was tossed.

The story says it landed at the feet of a state representative who was in the governor's office chambers.

Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, said he sought refuge in the governor's suite of offices after sensing the crowd's angry mood. "All of a sudden, a big rock came through a window and landed at my feet," the legislator said. Security officers directed him and the governor's staff to another room.

Rep. Windle has not produced the rock.

More articles covering that "mob" that wasn't really a mob here.

This isn't the first time I've said I don't believe the rock/brick/stick exists. I made the same charge back on May 23, 2002, when I wrote this:

Of course, the administration claims riot cops were necessary because of last year's "riot" in which a window was broken by a protestor. Count me a skeptic. The administration has at various times described the "weapon" as a brick, a rock, and a stick. It allegedy landed at the foot of some lawmaker inside the governor's office. But where is the rock or brick or stick? Surely, if such a crime was committed, the witnesses would know if it was a rock or a stick or a brick, and the evidence would have been collected. The rock ... or brick ... or stick ... would be in investigators' hands. We would have seen a photo of it. But we haven't. Why? Until there is solid evidence otherwise, my guess is: because it doesn't exist. The Sundquist administration claims it exists, however, and so the media has bought the story without really questioning it...

Rep. Windle, members of the former Sundquist administration, Capitol police and state troopers have had ample time to produce the evidence - the rock, brick or stick - but haven't done so. I think we all know why.