Many, if not most, Americans might have agreed with them. Democrats in Washington and their supporters in the “mainstream” media desperately wanted them to be the liberal answer to the Tea Party.

Yet, the Occupy movement has presented no coherent message; has become a public health menace that even liberal city leaders have had to remove forcibly; has cost people their jobs and cut into their livelihoods; has been the scene of numerous crimes; and has lost the sympathy of most Americans: A Siena poll indicates 66 percent say the Occupiers do not speak for them.

(Last) week, one Occupier exhorted others, “On the 17th, we’re going to burn New York City to the (expletive) ground,” and, “In a few days, you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.”

That man, identified as Nkrumah Tinsley, was arrested for making terroristic threats. The New York Daily News reports that, “It’s not the first time Tinsley has been busted since the Occupied Wall Street movement started in September. In October, Tinsley was arrested on Barclay Street for punching a cop in the face and kicking him on the ground during a protest. He was charged with felony assault for the attack and later released without bail.”

On Thursday, two New York police officers were injured by Occupy protesters. At Occupy San Diego, they held a moment of “solidarity” for “the White House and the guy who shot at the White House today.” You can’t make this stuff up.

These are the folks that NBC news anchorman Brian Williams suggested might be the movement of our era — and worried that comedian Jon Stewart had been too tough on.

“God bless them,” former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the Occupiers, “for their spontaneity. It’s independent ... it’s young, it’s spontaneous, and it’s focused. And it’s going to be effective.”

Oops.

Just wondering: What might Brian Williams or others in the liberal media have said about Tea Party members carrying on this way? On second thought, we already know.

So, the media and their Democratic friends, so tightly tethered to this motley crew — that have defecated in the streets and assaulted police officers and Thursday tried to shut down Wall Street, which would have further hurt other innocent Americans — will be loath to admit the mistake. Nor will they ever likely apologize to the Tea Party movement, which they slandered from the start.

Instead, through what they say and what they don’t say, they have disingenuously tried to build up the Occupy movement to be the Tea Party’s equal. The media have largely ignored the fact that the man who’s believed to have shot at the White House was at the Occupy D.C. encampment.

Nice try. Enjoy trying to explain away the behavior of your friends.