Obligatory: Chris Christie gets in heckler’s face at Meg Whitman rally; Update: Full video added

No I think you are mistaken:

Enter Think Progress, which unearthed this shocking, secret memo from the leader of a small grassroots conservative organization in Connecticut, which allegedly instructs members on “infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress.”

Right Principles PAC was formed by Bob MacGuffie and four friends in 2008, and has taken in a whopping $5,017 and disbursed $1,777, according to its FEC filing.

“We’re just trying to shake this state up and make a difference up here,” MacGuffie told me during a telephone interview. He’s surprised at his elevation to national rabble-rouser by the Left.

Right Principles has a Facebook group with 23 members and a Twitter account with five followers. MacGuffie describes himself as an “opponent of leftist thinking in America,” and told me he’s “never pulled a lever” for a Republican or Democrat on a federal level. Yet this Connecticut libertarian’s influence over a national, orchestrated Republican health-care push-back is strong, indeed, if you listen to liberal pundits and the Democratic National Committee, who have crafted a nefarious web out of refutable evidence.

Think Progress highlighted his memo’s directives to “Yell, Stand Up And Shout Out,’ ‘Rattle Him’,” calling it a “right-wing harassment strategy against Dems.” The blog falsely connected MacGuffie to the national conservative group FreedomWorks through the most tenuous of threads. The Think Progress link that purports to establish MacGuffie as a FreedomWorks “volunteer” leads to his one blog posting on a Tea Party website (on the free social networking site, ning.com). Think Progress calls Tea Party Patriots a “FreedomWorks website.”

The problem is it’s not a FreedomWorks site, according to FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon. FreedomWorks is a “coalition partner” of TeaPartyPatriots.org, but does not fund the site in any way.

“There is no formal structural connection,” Brandon told me. “Never has been. Never will be. We’re just fellow travelers in the movement.”

When I asked MacGuffie if he was a volunteer for FreedomWorks outside the specious evidence Think Progress cited, he said, “Absolutely not. You can Google all day; you won’t find it. There is no formal connection. I don’t know anyone from FreedomWorks.”

He joined the Tea Party Patriots community site when it was mentioned to him by several local Tea Party activists (whom he admits knowing . . . smoking gun!), and “blogged there, very little.” So MacGuffie, a local activist in Connecticut who never volunteered for FreedomWorks wrote a memo and also wrote a blog post on a site not paid for or hosted by FreedomWorks. There’s your national conspiracy, folks.

The block quote Think Progress provides from MacGuffie’s memo (dutifully reproduced on other liberal blogs) also implies there are sentiments in the memo that simply aren’t there. Each of TP’s examples of the “harassment” MacGuffie is inciting is preceded by a headline MacGuffie didn’t write, which lends a considerably more sinister tone than MacGuffie used. The bolded headlines below do not appear in the memo, but do appear in Think Progress’ block quote of it:

Sultry Beauty on September 23, 2010 at 5:40 PM

I am upset. You are all comparing apples to oranges. The Congress was using procedures that were being debated on their Constitutionality. The polling against HCR was over 60%. The constituents demanded that their representatives answer to them about their votes. They demanded to have their voices heard. Time and again, the Democrat representatives told them it was none of their business. Or like Landriu, they shut off their phones. A Conservative got arrested trying to prove that fact too.

Now, Meg is a candidate for office. She was giving a townhall to discuss her views on where she will take California. That’s a far cry from the other situation. There’s NO reason to interrupt or be angry with her. She’s not even in office yet. Additionally, I don’t see conservatives going and talking over Jerry Brown when he’s talking about his views on California. Not the same situation. Not the same level of respect needed.

But if you see the situations as being equal… Again, I’ll say, I can understand how we got where we’re at now and how people like Christopher Buckley, Peggy Noonan, and Colin Powell could listen to empty statements by Pres. Obama and think he was the answer.

Sultry Beauty on September 23, 2010 at 5:59 PM

Brian on September 23, 2010 at 5:55 PM

I’m not a man.

Sultry Beauty on September 23, 2010 at 6:00 PM

Let me use a metaphor that will slice this debate like a hammer:

-There is such a thing as justifiable homicide.
-Justifiable homicide doesn’t make homicide legal.

There’s are reason why a lot of the original commentators are no longer here safe for MadCon. When the knee-jerk reaction is to say hey they both do it equally, you lose a lot of us. That’s like comparing Conservatives to McVeigh to Islamic Terrorists. You simply lose me. A lot of original Conservative commentators here are so vested in their commentary, it’s hard to constantly bombarded with these knee-jerks.

I stick around and “nitpick” because I’m really not that invested in it. Like the original intent and mantra of Hot Air, I come to “VENT”. I do it here, and then go about my day. The people of California love me for doing it. I much more sweetly reasonable. It helps to ensure I’m not one of those so-called “angry Conservative mob” members you think this fella reminds you of.

Over and out… =P

Sultry Beauty on September 23, 2010 at 6:29 PM