The heckling of President Obama by a Daily Caller reporter today is just the beginning, I fear. Make no mistake; this episode had nothing to do with getting a question answered. The Right will do whatever it takes to make the President seem weak and small and inept, and the reporter, Neil Munro, was just playing his part for the Cause.
The Daily Caller is unrepentant, btw. Their excuse is that the reporter thought the President was finishing his remarks. Tucker Carlson added,
“A reporter’s job is to ask questions and get answers. Our job is to find out what the federal government is up to. Politicians often don’t want to tell us. A good reporter gets the story. We’re proud of Neil Munro.â€
I sincerely hope the Daily Caller doesn’t get a White House press pass for the next decade. But this is going to keep happening, in any venue into which the Right can get an operative.
Brian Stelter, New York Times:
By shouting out and repeatedly interrupting the president during a speech, Mr. Munro violated decorum at the White House and generated online shouts of disapproval from other reporters, analysts and historians. The incident took place two weeks after the president’s top strategist, David Axelrod, was nearly drowned out at a campaign event by hecklers who had come to support Mitt Romney. …
…Mr. Obama had only been speaking for about five minutes when Mr. Munro first shouted. He continued speaking for another five minutes afterward.
Mr. Munro did not specify what he shouted, but other reporters who were present said the initial question was, “Mr. President, why do you favor foreign workers over Americans?â€
Earlier, the editor in chief of The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson, defended Mr. Munro’s behavior as an act of journalism. Mr. Carlson, who was on an airplane at the time of the presidential statement, said he had not seen the incident, but “as far as I’m concerned, not having seen it, as a general matter, reporters are there to ask questions.â€
He added, “No politician wants to answer questions, but that’s not our concern.â€
Mr. Carlson, whose site has highlighted what it calls liberal media bias, said he expected the “Obama worshipers in the press†to attack Mr. Munro. When told that his reporter was being called a heckler, Mr. Carlson answered, “That’s what it’s called when you try to get the president to answer your question?â€
I’m not one to revere the imperial presidency, but it’s unbelievable how wingnuts treat this man with such unprecedented and bullying disrespect: from Rep. Joe Wilson screaming “You lie†during Obama’s 2009 speech to a joint session of Congress, to Speaker John Boehner denying him his choice of dates for another congressional address (for the first time in history) last fall, to Donald Trump’s persistent, humiliating demands for the president to show him his papers (with no rebuke from ally Mitt Romney). And for right-wingers who insist Democrats are too quick to cry racism: Really, what else explains this constant, in-your-face (literally) contempt for a president?
Certainly they disrespected President Clinton, too, but never with such in-person abuse. Clinton was impeached after a political witch hunt and treated poorly even by the so-called liberal media, but he was never stalked into the Rose Garden or congressional chambers and heckled, as Obama has been.
The Right thinks it is justified in disrespecting the President, because liberals are mean to them. This is going to keep happening.
No matter what POTUS does there is 15% of the population who is going to treat him as if he is a usurper in a white man’s White House.
By keeping calm, acting with dignity, treating the interrupter with calm, quiet words and NEVER, NEVER lowering himself to the level of the ‘interrupter’, he will demonstrate that he is the only adult in the conversation.
“the President was finishing his remarks. Tucker Carlson added”
Why even consider this, T#cker C%rlsuck, is this blogger bottom feeding. Only the left could raise T^%K(&^%(*&^% from the dead.
I think it’s more like the right justifies such behavior because they feel NO Democratic President, by definition, is legitimate. Adding, yes, of course, especially Obama.
These are all displays of very, very bad manners. These Republicans cannot be considered gentlemen or ladies nor should they be considered such. Were they taught these bad manners by their mothers?
They treat Obama like a substitute teacher.And for the same reason (in their minds).
This behavior will increase, unless one of the hecklers gets his ass handed to him.
Then Obama will be called a tyrant and a hater of liberty.I never thought I’d see such hatred in my country.The world is watching.These wing nuts feed of each other’s hatred, each act will push the envelope just a little more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s7X5-Drctk
“Earlier, the editor in chief of The Daily Caller, Tucker Carlson, defended Mr. Munro’s behavior as an act of journalism.”
MotherTucker CarlSonOfPrivilege, wouldn’t know an act of journalism if it were shoved up his rather ample @$$!
He is the worst kind of rich, smarmy, entitled, a@$$hole, who, when finally realizing his career as a “Journalist/Polemicist” was going nowhere, decided to become a propagandist for the right.
I hate to keep harping on it, but this again reminds me of what I’ve read about late-20’s to early-30’s Germany, where the Nazi brownshirts would go to any assembly of other groups, Socialists, Communists, Trade Unionists, etc., and try to shout them down.
THIS is, no two ways about it, a FASCIST tactic.
There was also the incident a few days ago, where the Romney campaign bus drove around a collection of Obama supporters, honking its horn, like it was the opposing HS team’s bus trying to disrupt their rivals pep-rally at their school parking lot.
These people are nasty, jejune morons, who value only their own set of beliefs, and believe others are sub-humans.
We Liberals, on the other hand, don’t consider them sub-humans, just stupid, ignorant, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and/or homophobic, examples of humanity:
Alpha males and females, with Delta intelligence, and without and Iota of empathy for others.
And yes, we’ll see more. AND worse.
This is all part and parcel of their attempts to ram their viewpoints on others – the “Fascisting” of America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUMS939xQsw&feature=related
If you ever get a chance to watch “Hitler: The Rise of Evil”, streaming on youtube, there’s a great scene toward the end where the Nazis have gotten a majority in the Reichstag. An opposition leader is speaking and he is heckled and hissed down. The exact same behavior as todays republican party.
Oh, and the righties will say, “Well, we’re only doing what Liberals were doing back in the 60’s and 70’s!”
And there’s a bit of truth there.
Except, WE were protesting the lack of basic civil rights for people who weren’t white, for women’s rights, for the economic rights of immigrant workers, economic justice for all, and to end a needless, expensive, and pointless, war. These are things we still protest, because the righties keep trying take back those rights, while continuing to fight needless, expensive, and pointless, wars.
THEY’RE advocating greater income inequality, while protesting expanding health care to more people, economic justice for all, letting immigrant’s have a path to citizenship, and that this rather centrist President is part of some greater ‘Darkie Force’ of Liberalism, and doesn’t do what they want him to do – the uppity Nigrah, and/or whatever else their wealthy and powerful puppet-masters want these, their imbecilic sycophantic puppets, to say, or, better yet – SCREAM!
This is what happens when rich people aren’t taxed enough!
Paying their fair share of taxes, would make for a more fair society.
And who wants that, when, instead of paying that money in taxes, they can pay yokel’s, rubes, fools, idiots, morons, and marks, to do their evil bidding for them, to help them get their way?
If you’re a Republican or a Conservative, and you ain’t got no money or power, then you’re just a useful feckin’ idjit, and a FECKIN’ SUCKER!
You’re just tools to be used and discarded, SUCKERS!!!
On the plus side, it appears that this imbeciles little stunt is being frowned upon by the real WaPo Village Press Corps:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/neil-munro-of-daily-caller-interrupts-obamas-speech-reactions-on-twitter/2012/06/15/gJQAEeGPfV_blog.html
I eagerly await columns from both Peggy Noonan and Sally Quinn, the two Ms. Manners of the Ol’ Village Square(s), decrying the lack of civility in today’s Washington, DC.
Or, will they search and search, and find some NY Times reporter who burped during a Nixon “presser” after eating some Mexican food for lunch, and a Village Voice reporter who, after eating some bulgaki and drinking a few brews at the new Korean joint down the block, loudly passed wind when St. Ronnie was doing his best to remember where his mark was on the stage, and what the script said, during one of his “pressers.”
‘SEE! Both sides do it!!!”
Weren’t the rules od decorum imposed during the “bush”2 regium? where no “liberal” could question the president action?
Tucker Carlson is the kind of guy who would have been a dipstick even in college and who never improved after that.
He would choose to employ his own kind.
Jim,
IOKIYAR!
This has ended today’s edition of SATSQ.
My fear is that left-leaning idiots will strike back. The Romney camp is counting on it, becase they will have to defend this as self-defense. Until now, there are no real examples that I know of where Obama supporters are disrupting Romney events. That’s very tempting but it will give Romney and the media their favorite line. “Both sides do it.”
Unfortunately, it’s too much to expect that we won’t go for revenge like a fish striking a lure.
They don’t merely disrespect the President, they also disrespect the idea of truth or responsibility for their own actions. After the stunt started getting widely criticized, they tried to float the claim that the ‘reporter’ Munro ‘thought the President was finished.’ Which, if you watch the video, is completely absurd. It’s a little hard to tell exactlywhen Munro starts speaking, but it’s while Obama is speaking, and there is no way that anyone would have thought the President was finished with his statement.
So, not only was he a rude bully, but once he got called on it, he started making lame excuses and pretending he didn’t do it.
They really are bratty children.
Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgG1NHBVBvg&feature=plcp
The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush is my personal hero. Does that make me a hypocrite if I criticize Munro?
Gotor90,
Considering that that (real) journalist’s country was destroyed, and that he probably had several family members and friends killed or displaced by Bush’s Reign of Error, I would say, NO!, since all that was bothering this American Conservative evil assclown, was that there was a Nigrah in a position of power, and he didn’t agree with him.
One was an act of genuine rebellion and disgust at the figure of authority and responsibility for a needless war and occupation.
The other is a hissy-fit thrown by some talentless, moronic, snot-nosed sycophant, trying to establish some more Conservative bona fides, so he can get on the Bigger-Asshole Cirquit of Wingnut Welfare, for more fun, power, and profit.
Maybe he feels Tucker’s vanity website is too small for him – and that now, FOX News will come calling and give him his own show to heckle the pallid shadows of Liberals allowed on the programs.
You lefties need to get out more. Obama supporters heckled and disrupted Romney’s venture into West Philadelphia. Axelrod had a rough time on the steps of the Massachusetts statehouse when Romney staffers came by.
Been there done that–on both sides. I wouldn’t say that The Won was “heckled” in the Rose Garden. But your mileage may vary.
No, people who lived in West Philadelphia (“dozens of neighborhood residents“) heckled Romney for being a clueless tool, which he is. However, the Philadelphia hecklers were not JOURNALISTS, idiot. The reason this is a big bleeping deal is that it is unprecedented for a member of the press pool to be so openly disrespectful of the President. Of course, since you are a rightie (definition: adult whose emotional maturity arrested at age 9) you will refuse to acknowledge this.
Gulag: It does sound pretty different when you put it that way. But Munro may have known someone who knew someone whose feelings were hurt by Obama’s socialist demonization of our Galtian overlords, so there’s that, also.
Well, after all, that uppity Obama DID sass the Conservative Supreme Court Justices for their OTHER worst decision of the 21st Century – the first was, of course, “Bush v. That Earth-tone Wearing Liberal Environmentalist Threat To Conservatism Al Gore, Who Was VP To That Arkansas Hillbilly With A Shrew For A Wife Who Took George H.W. Bush’s And Bab’s Rightful Places In The Sally Quinn and Peggy Noonan Sponsored And David Broder Approved Rounds Of DC Villager Dinners And Cocktail Parties!”
We’ll be paying for both of those decision for generations – if there are any future generations, that is.
Heckling a private citizen who is a political candidate for office when he is at a campaign stop is categorically different than interrupting the serving President of the United States when he is in the course of delivering a message as part of his official business. I don’t understand why that isn’t obvious. This isn’t a case of tit-for-tat and both sides do it. There should be no ‘sides’, here.
Even if you have no respect for the man, you should at least have respect for the office, and the process. He is the duly elected President of the nation, and respect for the American people alone entitles him to some basic courtesy for that reason.
Not only are they children, but despite their claim to be “conservative”, they have no understanding or appreciation of American tradition.
(And let’s not even get started on the way the W. re-election campaign treated people attending his rallies, if they had the wrong bumper sticker or t-shirt on, without them even opening their mouths. The Right isn’t really known for being thick-skinned.)
There would be NO downside at all to pulling the heckler’s press pass. The Right could squak like babies, but they do that pretty much full time already.
I think using the title “By Any Means Necessary” was a bit disrespectful of Malcolm X. He made a lot of mistakes over the years, but he ultimately turned out to be a man with personal integrity, and considerably more gray matter than the entire caucus of so-called “Tea Party” Representatives put together.
OT – but a great read, from Rick Perlstein – about how the right plays the “Long Game,” while befuddled Liberals look at the same thing and see utter nonsense that no even half-sane person could possibly believe (and yet, they do!), until they ‘mainstream’ total bullsh*t and insanity:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/behind-the-rights-phony-war-on-the-nonexistent-religion-of-secularism-20120425#ixzz1xtetPkjW
Oh, and I hope on tomorrows ‘Mace the Nation,’ with kindly ancient Boob Sheeeeeshfer, that Mitt gets asked about Obama’s move on immigration.
Not THAT might be fun.
Skip breakfast, by the end of thay 1/2 hour, you’ll be full – and have enough of waffles to last you a lifetime.
Obama has yet to learn how to deal with bullies. He should’ve stopped the press conference right there, and told Munro how to behave, and explaining that any further outbursts will not be tolerated. He should directly address the fact that this is not merely asking questions, it’s out and out heckling, intimidation, and disrespect. Of course, this will only egg someone like Munro on, at which point he should be ejected from the room.
I’m sure I’m not the only one disgusted both by these barbarians, and how a supposed leader like Obama continually makes himself impotent before them. Bullies only keep going until they’re stopped, and stopped they must be, if the nation’s business is to continue.
moonbat, I have no idea what press conference you watched, but it obviously wasn’t the same one I did. Far from making himself ‘impotent’, Obama showed just enough anger to make his point, without going into histrionics. I thought he made the ‘journalist’ look like a fool.
-Ian
Ian, I agree. I think the President used just the right amount of pressure on the journalist. He wasn’t going to allow what he had to say to be sidetracked into a spat with someone deliberately egging him on.
The journalist, foreigner though he is, undoubtedly knew that Rose Garden announcements are not interrupted. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover that his boss knew about this before it happened. No matter, just set a precedent and eventually all hell will break loose, every time the President speaks. Gulag is right.
The Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush is my personal hero. Does that make me a hypocrite if I criticize Munro?
I’d say since Obama didn’t invade and destroy Munro’s country under false pretenses (at least not by any non-delusional, non-racist scenario), the two are not comparable.
heckled and disrupted Romney’s venture into West Philadelphia
And that dipshit comment is so very much not comparable that it doesn’t bear explaining to a non-delusional person. So I won’t even try with that commenter.
If the WH follows up by banning Munro (maybe they have already; I’ve missed a couple news cycles), I’d say the response was exactly right. I enjoyed Obama’s stern-prof-scolding-drunk-fratboy tone caught on camera, even while cringing because the moment was necessary.
All is right with the world.
John McCain was on David Gregory’s Conservative yank-fest this morning.
They ought to charge the old fool rent.
AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
WTF – WHY is ‘Ol’ Man Screams At Clouds’ even ON Meet the Conservatives?
Gregory felt like mailing one in this morning, and didn’t want to even bother thinking?
OY!!!