Jonah Goldberg asks, “Remember when the Tea Party threw smoke bombs at the White House?  Me neither.” Had this happened at a Tea Party event, it would have created a media meltdown unsurpassed since the Tucson shooting that killed six and gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Today?  Meh.  Most news organizations haven’t even put up a B-roll video about the Occupy Congress attack on the White House:

An apparent smoke bomb was thrown over the fence of the White House as hundreds of Occupy protesters massed outside the gates.

The crowds were dispersed Tuesday night and the White House was all clear. U.S. Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie says there were no arrests in the incident.

It turns out that the crowds were more easily dispersed than first predicted, too:

Organizers had touted the rally, known as Occupy Congress, as the largest national gathering of Occupy protesters to date and secured a permit that would have allowed up to 10,000 people to participate. By mid-afternoon, the protest appeared to have fallen far short of those goals.

According to this NBC report, only a thousand protesters showed up to the wrong end of Pennsylvania Avenue for the Occupy Congress protest.  They also showed up on Michelle Obama’s birthday, a fact mentioned in both reports as an explanation of why the President was in no danger during the attack.  The Obamas were out on the town celebrating the occasion and not at the White House at the time.

Obviously, a smoke bomb does not represent a big threat, but it could have been something much worse.  Had a conservative protest tossed an explosive device of any kind over the fence during Obama’s presidency — even a firecracker or two — the media would have reported it as clear evidence that conservatives have lost their minds and that their latent violence and hatred was about to burst forth in a bloodbath across the land.  And if you think I exaggerate, then you must have missed the hyperventilating coverage last January of the Tucson shooting.