WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Remember when Occupy Wall Street was sweeping the nation? “The media branded it the left’s answer to the Tea Party, the start of a grand national mobilization; depending on who you ask, half of America once supported the OWS protestors, double the amount who back the Tea Party. The Huffington Post even launched a separate page devoted entirely to coverage of OWS. How the mighty have fallen. . . . OWS has essentially fallen apart. It is not a significant presence on the streets; it is not a significant presence in Democratic Party politics; it is not a significant presence in the national conversation.”

OWS was never mighty. It was always a bubble full of media hot air, and it collapsed when its actual behavior damaged it to the point that even the media’s best effots couldn’t keep it inflated, at which point the press started pretending it had never existed. . . .