His name is Bob Etheridge, a Democratic* Congressman from North Carolina. After being asked a simple (though perhaps loaded) question on a sidewalk, the Democratic* Congressman -- in the words of the NRCC -- "lost it" and assaulted the questioner: an unnamed, self-professed, college student. The Democratic* Congressman grabbed the person on the wrist, and later on the neck; he repeatedly asked, "who are you;" and then he lied that he had a "right to know" who the student is.
Frankly, I am more disturbed by the lie than by the physical assault. The physical assault, while disturbing, was a one-time incident, resulting in only a temporary loss of liberty to the victim. Such a lie, though, from an elected official of the federal government -- a Democratic* Congressman -- could be used to permanently deprive someone of his First Amendment rights.
Thinking more about it, though, I wouldn't be surprised that a Democratic* Congressman didn't know that we have a First Amendment right to anonymity, since the Democratic* Party has spent so much time in the last couple years assaulting our First Amendment rights (saying groups of people lose their right to speech when they exercise their right to associate, for example).
OK, maybe that was overly partisan. It's not like some Republican politicians don't have First Amendment problems too (John McCain did help author the bill I am referring to, after all). But I get really angry about government assaults on liberty, whether corporate assaults on corporate liberty (lockstep Democratic* opposition to the rights of filmmakers), or individual assaults on individual liberty (a Democratic* Congressman assaulting an individual on a sidewalk).
I agree with some of the commenters I've seen that the Democratic* Congressman should be removed from office as soon as possible. Practically speaking, that may mean just waiting until November, of course. It's notable that currently, Democratic* Congressman Bob Etheridge's election web site is not responding.
*Note that I used the proper form of the party name here. As an adjective, the word is "Democratic," not "Democrat." I took great pains to make sure everyone knows that this is a "Democratic" official, not merely a "Democrat" official: that he is, in fact, an elected member of Congress that belongs to the Democratic Party. (You're welcome!)
Cross-posted on <pudge/*>.
Posted by pudge at June 14, 2010 08:42 AM | Email ThisI wonder if the student got his phone back.
So, added to the list of "Fighting words" are "do you support the Obama agenda"....
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 14, 2010 09:07 AMSo much for open government. Ask a liberal a question and get assaulted.
This video such be on repeat loop until November. It will remind the voters of the true face of liberalism.
Posted by: Attila on June 14, 2010 09:44 AM"I have seen the video posted on several blogs. I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved.
And:
"I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse."
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 09:48 AMThe violent Tea Party scandles are being covered up and this guy is obviously a Republican plant.
Posted by: James on June 14, 2010 10:29 AMI assume Keith Olbermann will be rushing to give this Dem his "Worst Person in the World" award. Oh wait, no he'll just pretend it never happened like all party-line MSM liars.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 14, 2010 10:57 AMOn top of incivility and lack of understanding of the First Amendment, it looks like theft can be alleged in addition to text book assault and battery.
Indefensible.
Posted by: Beantowner on June 14, 2010 11:35 AMWhat an ARSE!
Really sad display for a leader of his state and political decision maker for this country.
Posted by: yo yo its meo on June 14, 2010 12:25 PMYou have *got* to be kidding me.
I told you guys it would be cool to see the liberals defend the tyranny. And now we have one.
That is where the Left is in this country.
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 12:55 PMSadly I doubt that this guy will pay for his boorish behavior.
Posted by: G Jiggy on June 14, 2010 12:59 PMThat poor agent provocateur of Breitbart's must feel silly about having a senior citizen manhandle him so easily, though.
Posted by: tensor on June 14, 2010 01:00 PMYou think it's illegal to ask a Congressman a question?
"premeditated provocation"? What??? He asked is the Congressman supported Obama's agenda. Why is that provocative? Do you support Obama's agenda? Are you going to call the police now?
"Do you support the Obama agenda?" is "premeditated provocation"? Ha, ha, ha!!! You're such a tool.
Posted by: G Jiggy on June 14, 2010 01:06 PM
Let's see some proof to go along with this statement.
Posted by: Jack on June 14, 2010 01:12 PMYou think it's civilized discourse to shove a camera into a person's face and ask "loaded" questions?
Let's see some proof to go along with this statement.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/item_tLI9lLTD84fBBGXxqRJN7J;jsessionid=D5D333DFBD70E124585468B6A844823F
(The New York Post, like Fox News, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, so feel free to disbelieve anything in either.)
A Breitbart provocateur is not an innocent college student, no matter how earnest the pretense.
Posted by: tensor on June 14, 2010 01:33 PMDo you support Obama's agenda, tensor?
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 01:37 PMWe already have the undeniable video proof that your hero Etheridge is a bully guilty of assault, battery and theft.
So, that makes him guilty then? Guilty of what exactly? Asking a question of a Congressman?
Where did you learn that one is guilty if they ask a question that you don't don't like? College? Where?
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 01:43 PMTensor is a good parrot, have a cracker.
Posted by: mike336 on June 14, 2010 01:51 PMPosted by Joe Szilagyi at June 14, 2010 12:46 PM
You have it upside down. The mainstream media (i.e. Media Matters, Daily KOS, Huffington Post) are rogue Obamainite brownshirts and all GOP reps should have body guards to protect them against SEIU/ACORN and other union thugs. In addition, anyone who wears tea party movement insignia should also have protection to guard them against SEIU and other union thugs.
If it weren't for Breitbart, the leftist progressive brownshirts from unions and other leftwing media outlets would be harassing the public and spreading their quasi-marxist propaganda at will.
Posted by: KDS on June 14, 2010 01:53 PMWho are the brownshirt thugs?
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on June 14, 2010 02:06 PMthat said Republican Congressman would not have already been forced to resign? That the media would not be covering the scene 24/7?
Startling.
Posted by: Beantowner on June 14, 2010 02:08 PMYup, the leftist meme is already spreading! "GOP brownshirts", how colorful!
Posted by: Doug Smith on June 14, 2010 02:29 PMQ: "Do you support Obama's agenda?"
A: "How dare you ask me that, Nazi! Police, arrest this man!"
According to the Left, it's OK for an elected U.S. Congressman to assault someone because he didn't like the way the question was being asked.
According to the Left, it's OK for an elected U.S. Congressman to assault someone because the person asking the question may or may not work for someone who holds differing political views.
OK. If that's how you want the rules of engagement to be? So be it.
But I don't want to hear one sniveling word out of you cowards if and/or when you're on the receiving end of a beatdown.
You're determining the standards for acceptable pubic behavior, not us. Don't come bitching when you don't like how it turns out.
All that aside, the trolls that did the fake pimp ACORN sting and then broke into Senator Landriu's office are now convicted criminals for their actions. Seriously you guys--Breitbart is the bottom barrel of the political world, on par with TMZ in the entertainment world.
Was Etheridge stupid for what he did? Absolutely. Was it humiliating for these strapping 20 year olds that a 68-year old man tossed him around like a wet rag? Absolutely!
Is ambush journalism bullshit? Absolutely, whether it's a pol or an entertainer or a private person.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on June 14, 2010 02:38 PMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sDppm_WEcg
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 02:40 PMIt is irrelevant who they were. They did not ask him an abusive question, they showed no hostility toward him, and they did not assault or harm him in any way.
tensor: The Congressman should have called the police
What for? They did nothing wrong, and violated no laws.
That poor agent provocateur of Breitbart's must feel silly about having a senior citizen manhandle him so easily, though.
So now he did something wrong by not stooping to the Congressman's level and engaging in physical violence?
You think it's civilized discourse to shove a camera into a person's face and ask "loaded" questions?
Civilized, yes (as civilization is required for any sort of verbal-language-based discourse). Civil? Maybe not, but since when is assault (and potentially, battery) a rational response to mere (and mild) incivility?
A Breitbart provocateur is not an innocent college student
Actually, in this case, he absolutely IS innocent, unless you have evidence that he committed some sort of a crime warranting a violent physical reaction from an elected Democratic* official of the federal government,
You people are ridiculous.
Do you support Obama's agenda?
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 02:43 PMHow many times do I have to say the old man was out of line?
You guys ran the country for 8 years (rather successfully!). Now you don't. Lighten up a bit.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on June 14, 2010 02:46 PMLet me be more clear...
"Hyperbole (pronounced /haɪˈpɜrbəli/, from ancient Greek ὑπερβολή 'exaggeration'), is a rhetorical device in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.
Hyperboles are figures of speech that are exaggerated in order to create emphasis or effect. Hyperbole is a literary device often used in poetry, and is frequently encountered in casual speech. On occasion, newspapers and other media use hyperbole when speaking of an accident, to increase the impact of the story."
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on June 14, 2010 02:48 PM"The congressman was WAY out of line, but the narrative that these were harmless "students" is a fiction. They're rogue GOP brownshirts."
Do you support Obama's agenda?
Yes, right before you placed blame on the innocent victims of the crime.
How many times do I have to say the old man was out of line?
One more time ... after you retract your implication that the victims of this crime are in any way to blame.
All that aside, the trolls that did the fake pimp ACORN sting and then broke into Senator Landriu's office are now convicted criminals for their actions.
Yes, and hopefully, some of those ACORN employees will also become convicted criminals. You know, the ones who attempted to aid and abet child sex slavery with government money.
Breitbart is the bottom barrel of the political world, on par with TMZ in the entertainment world.
Yes, we get it: you are saying, clearly, that it is somehow less of a crime to assault certain innocent people.
Was it humiliating for these strapping 20 year olds that a 68-year old man tossed him around like a wet rag? Absolutely!
It's humiliating to choose to not physically strike an elderly Congressman? You're an idiot. Sure, it would've been somewhat entertaining to see Etheridge rolling around on the ground like Don Zimmer, but I respect the restraint. I am bigger than those kids are, and likely stronger than they and the Congressman, and I very likely would not have struck back or significantly resisted (although I surely would've used stronger language). While he does not respect the people, I still respect his office, and would have resisted the urge to knock him out.
Is ambush journalism bullshit? Absolutely, whether it's a pol or an entertainer or a private person.
He's a Congressman. He was asked a question by a member of the public. He was not asked a question any worse than the majority of questions many leftist reporters asked Bush during his tenure. Calling that "ambush journalism" is bullshit.
If they had jumped in front of him and sprayed blood around and screamed "why are you a babykiller?!," that would be ambush journalism. Getting literally in an astronaut's face and calling him a coward and a liar for participating in the coverup of the faked moon landing (after harassing the astronaut for years) is ambush journalism.
Asking a very mildly loaded question of an elected official is part of democracy, even if we don't like it sometimes.
I'm 100% behind his efforts to
1. Make BP pay 100% of every penny lost to their disaster, and all required cleanups to make the Gulf be the same as they found it.
2. Remove liability caps to make corporations as fully exposed to repercussions as any private citizen, including criminal, tax, and civic liability is. if they want to be treated like a "person" (such as for free speech in the recent SCOTUS decision) they have to take the good with the bad. All or nothing. I run you down in my car, I'm 100% liable criminally and fiscally. The same applies to BP, Comcast, MSFT, Boeing--anyone.
3. Fix Wall Street regulations to minimize as much as possible the conditions of a 'too big to fail' ever happening again.
4. No more corporate bail outs.
5. Building to a future where anyone who needs medical care can get it without having to worry about lifetime financial destitution from something like cancer or a broken bone.
6. Minimizing everyone's access to nukes--ours included.
7. Being a good international citizen--we're not some special bird. We get a seat at the big table but are never entitled to arbitrarily claim a seat at the head. Only if others grant that.
8. Training up Afghan and Iraqi police and military to take over successfully, and then us getting out.
9. Coming up with a plan to drive down the deficit once jobs and the general economy is stabilized. You walk into a hospital and say, "Doctor, I got this bad cough for a week, can you fix it?" And the doctor says, "Sure, but let me fix that gunshot wound that's bleeding all over my ER first." You gotta do these things in order and by priority.
Those are the big ones, yes, that I follow. So mainly yes, I do.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on June 14, 2010 02:57 PMFrom now on, I plan to ask every Democratic elected official and candidate for office that I run into, "Do you fully support the Obama agenda?" I want to see if any of them assault me. LOL @Vatar.
Nuh uh, you don't get to do that and reshape the narrative of what *I* wrote. I did two separate things: I said Congressman was grossly out of line, *and* I took a slam at the reported Breitbart ties.
I wrote at first:
"The congressman was WAY out of line, but the narrative that these were harmless "students" is a fiction."
I slammed both sides. Please don't try to make it out like I was somehow apologetic. These weaksauce Fox News language tricks don't work for anyone with college level reading comprehension. ;)
I'll be even more clear: Ethridge=stupid, Breitbart=stupid, "Kids"=ask valid question, "Old man"=physically tossed kid like rag.
Posted by: Joe Szilagyi on June 14, 2010 03:03 PMYou guys ran the country for 8 years (rather successfully!). Now you don't. Lighten up a bit.
Typical liberal/statist who thinks that one side or another "runs the country". Obviously a big believer in big-government top-down rule.
Posted by: Doug Smith on June 14, 2010 03:08 PMI reshaped nothing.
I slammed both sides.
Yes: you slammed the innocent victim of the violent crime as much as you slammed the perpetrator of that crime. How noble.
Same is the case in #53 - The real Obama Agenda does not contain anything (with the possible exception of #1) that have either not happened or will never happen (#3, 4, 6, 8 and 9 fall into that category). #7 is irrelevant - feel good bilge.
Posted by: KDS on June 14, 2010 03:10 PMYou guys ran the country for 8 years (rather successfully!).
More hyperbole there Joe? Because Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid claim nearly half that timeline...
Of course, it's always "8 years of GOP" to blame and attack. Probably why this nutjob of a Congressman snapped, because of 8 years of brownshirts, eh Joe?
I mean, we cannot question our leaders, we work for them, right? Or was it the other way around? Nah, must be the first, how else can we attack anyone as stupid for deigning to ask our dear leaders a perfectly valid question!
Or perhaps it's because he saw the new polling data showing Americans greatly prefer the GOP over the Democrats. By an even larger margin than 1994, and we know what happened then. So maybe he was just lashing out at the writing on the wall, I guess...
Posted by: Shanghai Dan on June 14, 2010 03:13 PMAnd Etherdidge is going to be out of a job also.
Of course, the actual question was: "do you FULLY support the Obama agenda?"
Do you?
Do you support forcing people to buy health insurance? Do you support banning the manufacture of "assault rifles" and certain ammunition? Do you support laws that say a filmmaker can't advertise a film about a politician too close to an election? Do you support government taking over any company it wants to? Do you support censorship of political views on the radio? Do you support NOT extending the Bill of Rights to the states?
All of these are part of Obama's agenda.
Oh, and I think it's sad that you agree with Obama that America is not special. But I would appreciate it if you could tell as many people as you can that you support Obama's view that America is not special.
"You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can't find out by how they vote," said Rep. Janis Baird Sontany, D-Nashville.
You see, Democrats believe that *all* women must vote a certain way, and that *all* African-Americans must vote a certain way, etc. And how is this not sexist and racist?
It's a bit off topic, but you see... if you disagree with a Democrat, then you are don't count, and cannot be innocent, as Joe and tensor have so eloquently illustrated.
Posted by: Gary on June 14, 2010 03:28 PMAnd Etherdidge is going to be out of a job also."
Be wary of complacency ! Etheridge may have sealed his fate. However, the obfuscator in chief (Obamao) is using chaos as his friend and will create situations that he hopes will sway the public to see things the leftwing ideological way.
The GOP still need to demonstrate (at the proding of the Tea Party activists) how they will get the country out of this mess, maintain a strong defense, but stop trying to be the police force of the world - that is their achilles heel. The previous 6 years of when the GOP last was in control of Congress was a black eye for them when it came to spending and one war in particular, which led to defeats in 2006 and 2008. People have not forgotten this yet, so don't get too cocky or it still could be a rude awakening, if the GOP does not gain control of the US House in November.
but---many of us STILL vote these people back in, as if they are happy with what they do TO us--or--more frightfully---are just apathetic voter-drones;
either way, we ALL go over the cliff in the big America-canoe; November hopefully will be the blast of North Atlantic sea spray in the tired voter-sailor's snout...
Posted by: jimmie howya-doin on June 14, 2010 06:54 PMWhitman wasn't an elected official when that happened everyone involved explains that Whitman had simply lost patience with an unprepared subordinate. The fact is that the subordinate who reported the incident still works at Ebay to this day and is complimentary both Whitman and the way the problem was solved.
This is just a case where onces again the MSM are trying to stick up for their liberal buddies in politics.
I knew it was easy to unhinge a Democrat, but who knew "Barack Obama's agenda" was up there with Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and George Bush for getting them to fisticuffs!?!?!?!?!
Posted by: Andy on June 15, 2010 12:37 PMShould we interpret his response as a "no" in terms of supporting the president's agenda?
Posted by: Andy on June 15, 2010 02:16 PMI think the Congressman should introduce legislation legalizing his own behavior, for everyone. Then, we can all assault each other on the street, forcibly take each others' possessions, and demand proof of identity of any stranger who dares talk to us in public. Except for republicans and those teabagger nuts.
Posted by: Steven Adler on June 15, 2010 03:06 PM