01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 31, 2004

WASHINGTON

NATIONAL People's Action (NPA) held its annual meeting at a hotel here this week.

You haven't heard of National People's Action? Neither had I, until a few days ago. Based in Chicago, it turns out to be an umbrella organization for various left-wing "community-improvement" groups, based mostly in the Midwest and some of the larger industrial states.

Its objectives are no shock: more government intervention in the economy, less government intervention in world affairs, increased taxes, reduced requirements for public assistance and federal subsidies. It reminds me a little bit of the late, unlamented National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), and employs some of its tactics as well. More about that in a minute.

As any smart lobbying group does, National People's Action concentrates on one issue at a time. Its current cause is a measure, bottled up in the Senate, that would grant legal status to illegal aliens who manage to get through high school, and compel states to qualify such graduates for in-state tuition rates at public universities. The bill passed the Judiciary Committee last fall but has not yet been brought before the full Senate for a vote.

As it happens, the Bush administration takes no position on the measure. The White House has its own ideas about absorbing illegal aliens into the American economy, and its proposal is similarly stalled in Congress. Says a spokesman for George W. Bush: "The president has laid out the principles he believes should guide immigration discussion, and he is willing to work with Congress."

Needless to say, as far as National People's Action is concerned, this is unsatisfactory. Not only has the administration effectively ignored its pet bill, but the White House has refused to "advocate" for it as well. No surprise there. And no surprise that the White House has not found time to sit down and negotiate with National People's Action over a piece of legislation in which it has no stake.

Ordinarily, special-interest groups rise to such a challenge in conventional fashion: They orate at their annual convention, they raise money, they hold meetings back home, they advertise, they petition legislators to see things their way. But taking a page from the old NWRO script, members of National People's Action believe trespassing and thuggery are more effective lobbying tactics.

Accordingly, on a balmy Sunday afternoon, they descended in rented school buses on the residence of Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political counselor. Blocking traffic on the quiet residential street, several hundred NPA stalwarts, including school-age children, swarmed before Rove's house, chanting, "Rove ain't got no soul!" The object of their interest, Mr. Rove himself, opened his front door long enough to tell his unwelcome guests to "get off my property," but that only inflamed their passion.

One NPA member, a Mexican national now resident in Wichita, told the crowd that it "seems like he doesn't want to invite us in for tea," and directed her followers to surround Rove's house, chanting, screaming obscenities, pounding on windows and tracking Rove's movements as he went from room to room. Rove's 14-year-old daughter, and a visiting 10-year-old neighbor, were terrified by the spectacle.

In due course, the police were called, the Secret Service arrived, and Rove agreed to speak to two NPA board members on condition that the rest of the crowd depart from the neighborhood. The meeting lasted a reported two minutes, and consisted of Rove chastising the pair for reducing his daughter to tears. "He is very offended because we dare to come here," announced the more loquacious of the pair, who vowed to return.

The Washington Post treated the incident as mildly comical, although one has to wonder what the tone would be if a crowd descended on the home of a Post editor, threatening violence and frightening his children. And there was one comic incident. The next afternoon another NPA mob -- described as "confused" and "agitated" in one press report -- poured out of buses onto a residential street, blocked the intersection, and swarmed about searching for the home of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

"Where does Chao live?" several voices demanded of one observant neighbor.

"They don't live here anymore," he replied, to their evident disappointment.

To which I am tempted to apply the reliable Reagan-Bush Test. Imagine if the mob had represented not a left-wing "community improvement" coalition, but the Young Republicans, or an anti-abortion organization, or Rush Limbaugh's enthusiasts, and had surrounded the home of, say, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, or Harold Ickes, or Sen. Tom Daschle (D.-S.D.), screaming obscenities and pounding on windows, threatening violence.

Would that be treated as a light-hearted lesson in the perils of politics, or a symptom of the ugliness now rampant in public discourse?

Philip Terzian, The Journal's associate editor, writes a column from Washington.