First Prosser spoils the left’s big comeback in Wisconsin, now “townhall backlash!” week ends with an honest-to-goodness standing O for a man who stands accused by progressives of wanting to fiscally euthanize America’s elderly. Is there no port in a storm for America’s hard-working liberal narrative-builders?

Maybe the people yelling “yay” are actually yelling “haaaaaate”? Look for that argument soon at Media Matters.

Ryan claims that his constituents know him well and appreciate that he is trying to reduce the nation’s debt and deficits with his 2012 budget plan, which is strongly opposed by Democrats.

“Oh, they are overwhelming supportive. Have you actually attended these meetings? The crowds are overwhelmingly supportive,” he said when asked if his constituents back his proposal during an interview with Bloomberg Television…

“So I’m really — I’m taking a lot of solace in this. I’m very excited,” he said. “They know what I believe in, what I stand for and so they are excited about seeing one of their elected leaders try to tackle these problems.”

That’s from the Hill, which notes skeptically that Ryan was booed at one event and had a police escort at another — and yet, oddly enough, doesn’t note the clip below. John McCormack, who shot the video and who also found the crowds this week to be overwhelmingly on Ryan’s side, saw it coming:

Ryan faced a larger number of hecklers at this event than previous ones, but they were just a sliver of the max capacity crowd. The vast majority of those present stood and applauded Ryan after one constituent rose to thank the congressman for producing his plan to rein in the federal budget. You probably won’t see this on the nightly news (and not just because I’m a terrible cameraman; sorry if you get whiplash)…

[T]he crowd in the nearly full high school gymnasium was, again, very supportive—at least 70%-30% in his favor judging by the applause versus boos.

Without any truly impressive displays of liberal grassroots outrage this week to showcase, progressives will turn inevitably to astroturf. Remember when they screeched about health-care townhalls allegedly being ‘turfed by conservatives in the summer of 2009? Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks does:

“It’s funny because when the left accused us of Astroturf part of it was political, but the real fact of the matter is the left only understands Astroturf. That’s how they do it,” said Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks.

“Getting people information about where town halls are held and where their views are on the Ryan budget — that’s exactly what we did during the health care, but again, they accused us of Astroturf, so they’re essentially being hoisted on their own petard on this,” Kibbe said.

Loveless acknowledges that AFSCME organizers are informing union members of planned town halls – to the extent that the union group is aware of them – but says “we’re not driving them, they’re going on their own.”

So there you go. When the local union chief orders his members to get their asses down to the GOP’s townhall meeting and boo nice and loud, everything’s copacetic so long as they use their own wheels. Exit question: When they ramp up the protests later this summer, are they actually going to show up wearing union shirts? Or will they use, ahem, disguises?