UCSB Republicans Make Waves at Fox News

A recently posted YouTube video shown on Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes shows two leaders of the UCSB College Republicans, one of them an Iraq War veteran, getting spat on during a Santa Barbara anti-war protest last March.

UCSB students Ross Nolan and Ryan McNicholas were on Fox News’s Hannity and Colmes show Tuesday evening, July 22, to discuss their YouTube video documenting the march and rally. Added to the site July 13 and titled “Santa Barbara Anti-American Protest,” the video has already attracted over 19,400 viewers. It features the two young men, one the president and the other the executive director of UCSB’s College Republicans, walking with the protestors, asking questions, and engaging them in argument.

Executive Director McNicholas said that their original intent was not to post a video on YouTube, and that they certainly never expected to be featured on Fox News.

The majority of the filmed protestors held strong views against the Iraq war and the Bush administration. In the footage shown on Fox, one woman said President Bush deserves the same fate as Saddam Hussein-execution by hanging-but what came later was even more shocking: Nolan and McNicholas were busy talking to one protestor when another, a young woman sporting a blond Mohawk, walked by and spat at Nolan. The two decided to pursue this young woman, but she did not answer their questions. “Oh no, I spat on a war vet!” was her sarcastic rejoinder.

“Hannity and Colmes” host Alan Colmes said there needs to be a clear distinction between the filmed radicals and the majority of the liberal-minded population. “Most people, like myself, are anti-war, are not anti-American, but love our country,” said Colmes. “And the impression that, I feel, that some conservatives give is that if you oppose the war, this is an example, this is what they’re all like, this is what all liberals are like.”

McNicholas and Nolan acknowledged that not all people against the war are “anti-American,” but, said one, “A lot of time these anti-war protests fester this hate for America because you get a lot of people with extreme views together.” The two said they were open to arguments and discussions, but characterized the peace rally as full of hate and not the way to go about making a point.

Rally organizers had not been reached for comment as of this posting.