One of D.C.’s most annoying blowhards is crying foul (again). Perennial protester Adam Eidinger is complaining on the Adams Morgan message board about getting arrested during Monday’s recent anti-war/anti-global warming demonstrations.

Eidinger writes:

Dressed as a polar bear I was incarcerated for lawfully demonstrating at the US Capitol at the No War No Warming protests Monday. All the polar bears arrested are planning to fight their charges on November 15 when we appear in DC Superior Court on charges of unlawful assembly. The direct action of simply singing and dancing is not a crime. Police shouldn’t be so overbearing …. just because its time to step it up on ending war and global warming before its too late, is no excuse for cracking down on the lone voices who a few years from now will be the ones who got it right, just like the groups (I among them) who protested the war in Iraq 6 months before it started.

Eidinger doesn’t say whether he was blocking traffic on Independence Avenue or doing the arm-lock thing at an entrance to the Cannon House Office Building. Police had given the traffic disruptions as a reason for the arrests. Nor does Eidinger charge the police with using Pershing Park style tactics when they arrested him.

Eidinger just uses the news of his arrest as a way to pitch for more volunteers and to preach about the war. Great. Eidinger has been working this same schtick for years. Has he ever done anything more substantial than blocking traffic and vomiting up anti-Bush rhetoric in a city that is already very much anti-Bush?

Eidinger also seems or at least pretends to be woefully naive. Let me see if I understand this—-the man dresses up in a polar-bear suit and stages a protest in a heavily fortified part of the city. Is it a surprise that he got arrested? Wasn’t that the point? If he didn’t get arrested, would there have been any press coverage? You can’t willfully play in traffic and not expect the police to notice. If police didn’t notice, the Post wouldn’t have either.

You just can’t complain about your arrest if that was the whole point.

There’s one thing in Eidinger’s message board rant I can get behind. He lists all the items seized by the U.S. Capitol Police:

Item Taken by USCP
Cost/Value
One Large Wagon (Red Metal and Wood trim)………$60
One 250 watt powered speaker……………………………$800
One Microphone……………………………………………….$100
One Pitch control CD Player………………………………. $40
One 1500 watt mobile power battery and inverter…….$440
Approx 60 music CDs……………………………………….. $900
One Large Chrome Courier Bag w Purple Fur…………$120
Various XLR and RCA Cables………………………………..$60
Approx 20 handmade paper mache polar bear masks…$200
Approx 6 Handmade Polar bear hoods……………………..$90
Approx 4 pairs of handmade Polar bear gloves…………..$80
One Stainless Steel Thermos …………………………………$20
Two Stainless Steel Water Bottles……………………………$20
Two dozen Alpsnacks snack bars…………………………… $50

TOTAL Value/Cost basis……………………………………….$3,100

No one should have to endure getting their Alpsnacks snack bars taken from them. No one.