Shouting Down that Uppity...

[paft.livejournal.com]

President Obama to Daily Caller reporter who heckled him during Rose Garden speech on immigration:

The next time I prefer you let me finish my statements before you ask a question.

Here is a link to the Youtube video (because when I attempt to embed it, I get a completely different video. WHY does this forum keep doing that? It's very frustrating.)

What Salon's Joan Walsh has aptly called “Frat Boy Conservatism” is on the rise, with conservatives getting bolder and bolder about revealing their contempt not just for President Obama, but for anyone who supports him. As Walsh points out, the Romney campaign has sent supporters to heckle David Axelrod at a press conference, and driven one of its buses around an Obama event, repeatedly honking its horn in an attempt to disrupt it. Now we have Daily Caller reporter Neal Munro interrupting the President during a speech.

The Caller has pronounced themselves “very proud” of Munro for “doing his job,” and Munro himself is now claiming it’s all a matter of bad timing, saying “I always go to the White House prepared with questions for our president. I timed the question believing the president was closing his remarks, because naturally I have no intention of interrupting the President of the United States.” It’s not an especially credible explanation if you watch the video.

I recently heard someone defend Joe Wilson yelling “you lie” at Obama during a speech as a daring, anti-authority gesture. It wasn’t, and neither is this most recent example. It’s an act, rather of entitlement, a gesture of white, authoritarian contempt for a man perceived as "not really the president" by virtue of his politics, his background, and his skin color.

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

Comments

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The video does not match the text. What is the Angle angle?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

[foreverbeach.livejournal.com]

It's always race, right? When that Iraqi threw the shoes at Bush, that wasn't anti-authoritarian, it was just another Middle Eastern racist who hates white people?

Every President since forever has been yelled at, in every country which doesn't have penalties for yelling at Presidents (and even some which do). You ever see what would happen when Berlusconi made public appearances? Please. But since this President is half-white, it's clearly racial.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

while race is probably a factor, it's not the only one she refers to.

Clearly, it was disrespectful, and how the Italians treat their PM isn't relevant.

[paft.livejournal.com]

F: It's always race, right? When that Iraqi threw the shoes at Bush, that wasn't anti-authoritarian, it was just another Middle Eastern racist who hates white people?

Was that Iraqi a member of the white house press at a presidential speech?

F:Every President since forever has been yelled at, in every country which doesn't have penalties for yelling at Presidents (and even some which do). You ever see what would happen when Berlusconi made public appearances? Please. But since this President is half-white, it's clearly racial.

Every American president has NOT been interrupted in the course of a formal speech by a member of the press. That's unprecedented, as has been much of the contempt poured over this president (like someone yelling "you lie" during the President's speech before a joint session of congress.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, sure, but then the present-day US Congress doesn't have Senators trying to beat each other to death with canes, so what does this have to do with anything?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

You're right. There's a conspiracy somewhere here and over there around this forum against the correct embedding of Youtube videos.

THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH!

Here, I confessed it all.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

I knew it! So that's why whatever vid I try to post, it's always Justin Bieber popping up!!

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

What a dipshit. Obama handled it nicely, though.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Honestly, US politics in general has been boorish and thuggish on a regular basis. It's shameful to say this and to note what it means, but the USA really doesn't have much of a tradition in civil, civilized politics to build off of. I mean this is a country where an election actually had the slogans "Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa" and "Gone to the White House Ha Ha Ha".

[paft.livejournal.com]

You do understand, right, that this is not about garden variety hecklers, but about a member of the press interrupting the president during a speech?

You get that, right?

You understand that this is NOT business as usual?

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

It's hilarious (and by hilarious I mean sad) the way the right is defending Munro (free speech means being rude and speaking out!) while Republicans in Michigan have their metaphorical panties in a twist over female legislators using the word "vagina", so far as to ban those women from speaking. While Mike Callton is getting the vapors and crying about "mixed company", the Republicans look pretty idiotic turning around and then being "very proud" of Munro for speaking his unique brand of jackassery-to-power.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Excellent point.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Click on "use old embed codes" for sharing, if you're not already.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[fornikate.livejournal.com]

i'm with you.

[muscadinegirl.livejournal.com]

The Reps know they're going to win. The rich are backing them this time. All that means is that they're going to continue with the ultra-rich agenda where the current president left off.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

It puzzles me why the Right continuously think that the best choice to lead the country during economic disaster was a doddering old POW/entrenched career politico.

Oh..right...the curly hair issue.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

1. I don't think you can characterize what Munro did as "shouting down.

2. To the extent it was deliberate and meant to be disruptive (a debatable point, but for the sake of argument), it was rude and disrespectful. The president deserves the deference due his office.

3. I find this all deliciously ironic. The left are the ones shouting down speakers on college campuses, they are the ones throwing pies, "blood", glitter and other stuff on political enemies. To listen to them you'd think they've cornered the market on "speaking truth to power." Suddenly, this kind of behavior is no longer the courageous defiance of powerful elites. While I decry all this on both sides I cannot help but think about the sauce which goes equally well with both geese and ganders.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

You are being entirely too honest and rational about this whole thing.

Please stop, you're making the rest of us look bad.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

This little research paper (http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/how-racist-are-we-ask-google/) might go well with your post, I do think.

The conditions under which people use Google — online, most likely alone, not participating in an official survey — are ideal for capturing what they are really thinking and feeling. You may have typed things into Google that you would hesitate to admit in polite company. I certainly have. The majority of Americans have as well: we Google the word “porn” more often than the word “weather.”

And many Americans use Google to find racially charged material. I performed the somewhat unpleasant task of ranking states and media markets in the United States based on the proportion of their Google searches that included the word “nigger(s).” This word was included in roughly the same number of Google searches as terms like “Lakers,” “Daily Show,” “migraine” and “economist.”

As to the Iraqi comparison, why, it's LULZ day, an old image in a World of Warcraft theme!



I love how the Iraqi PM is Away From Keyboard.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I like in the original you can see how calm he is. He's kind of worried looking but it's more of "Ah crap not this again" than what's going on?!

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Being a rude idiot is not limited to party affiliation.

[paft.livejournal.com]

Didn't say it was.

[oslo.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to delve into "who did it first" or "new low in American politics" here. What I'm going to comment on is the gullibility of the American right that's celebrating Munro.

Munro wasn't "disrespecting the President" or even really "doing his job." He was kickstarting his career. This becomes evident if you just think about why the deferential norms are there in the first place - a member of the press needs to retain access to those in power in order to be valuable to his or her employer. It's natural, given the way political reporting works, to be deferential, even obsequious, in order to retain that kind of access. Anyone considering a stunt like Munro has to think about whether their actions are going to get them pulled from the WH beat or even fired - unless they're making a calculated effort to appeal to the cable news, fever-swamp, talk-radio conservative (in this case) audience. Today, he shouts some inane protest at the President (that we can't even hear in the video), tomorrow he'll be saying some inane things about the press in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, who will spend fully 75% of the interview talking about how he really inspired the effort.

And American conservatives just eat it up. Holy Hallelujah, someone in the press corps who appreciates that news isn't about reporting on current events but about selecting those facts about the world that best match the narrative with which you feel most comfortable. They're buying what Munro's saying, like the unsophisticated media consumers they are (and have to be, in order to be conservative in the first place), without even the slightest appreciation of how easily they're being manipulated. See also: Romney's campaign. "Anybody but Obama," they say. How is that any different from "hope and change"?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Great comment.

Of course the really big story here is how President Obama beat Romney to his punch to court Hispanic voters (even though the policy has been in effect for some time I think) and despite Congress apparent inability to do ANYTHING about this for years. Romney and Senator Marco Rubio are pissed for having the rug pulled out from under them in their effort to mend fences with Latino voters in Florida.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Watched it.

Nonplussed.

I'm going to say "so what?" What is the real significance here? Because in these very specific circumstances, the president had never been interrupted before does not strike one immediately as being something worthy of note or particular discussion, which seems to be the sentiment of most here, left right or center.

Sometimes when new ground is trod on, it's worthy of historical note. Neil Armstrong is probably the most exceptional case of this being so. However, when someone walks onto a specific spot that nobody has demonstrably walked on before, that by itself isn't worthy of note. I can say that nobody has ever set foot on a particular patch of wooded forest floor, and the world would not even notice, because there was no significance attached to being the first one to do so. Where I would argue that your post falls short is in why we should care, whether this is the first time this particular kind of instance has happened before or not, seems to be of no inherent significance.

The question of being unprecedented or not and the question of significance are two different things. You're spending all your time trying to convince us being unprecedented is the significance, but there is no answer to the question of meaningfulness being presented. Why is this categorically worse than the oft cited other forms of disrespect the press has traditionally shown the president?

[paft.livejournal.com]

Because it indicates a willingness to cross a line that had not been crossed before. It indicates a contempt I've not seen before even at profoundly despised presidents like Richard Nixon.

[merig00.livejournal.com]

Off topic: Would love to see you cover the video of Romney's bus tour explosion.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Truth to Power, baby!

[paft.livejournal.com]

I've already posted some of these links to another commenter here, but just in case anyone missed it:

Here is what Bush Jr.'s Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto has to say about Neal Munro's outburst:

"Reporters don't interrupt presidential statements. Period. @NeilMunroDC should be banned from WH."

https://twitter.com/TonyFratto/status/213703658410491904

Here's what Chris Wallace had to say:

"I covered Ronald Reagan for six years with Sam Donaldson. We used to scream our lungs out asking questions, but we always waited until the president had -- any president had finished speaking. The idea that you would interrupt the president in the middle of prepared remarks and shout a question -- I don't think the guy should be allowed back in the White House, you know, on a press pass."

And Sam Donaldson, who's been repeatedly cited as an example Munro was following?:

"I never interrupted any president while he was making a formal presentation of any sort. You don't do that, do you?" said Donaldson, who titled his 1987 memoir "Hold On, Mr. President!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/sam-donaldson-weighs-in-on-obama-heckler/2012/06/15/gJQA2R9ifV_blog.html

[existentme.livejournal.com]

This all seems reasonable enough to me.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

What? That wasn't time for questions. And he answered him anyways so I don't see what's the problem here.

[paft.livejournal.com]

The problem is a reporter interrupting the president in the course of an important speech.

[paft.livejournal.com]

And hey, lookee here! ANOTHER important media figure who doesn't see this as "business as usual."

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-howard-kurtz-takes-on-daily-caller-writer-over-neil-munros-heckling-obama/

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I haven't actually heard any important media figure, or for that matter political figure on either the left or right who has said anything positive about what this guy (who hardly anyone seems to have heard of) did. Therefore even granting that he did it for racist reasons, what does this prove other than he, and a bunch of internet creeps, are racists..but then we know there are still racists in this country.

Personally, I'm much more concerned about the substance of the speech itself.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

I'm all for respecting the office of the President, but there's also a fine line between respect and ass-kissing. People should feel free to speak any opinion about POTUS, but they don't need to interrupt him to get their point across. I prefer to save that for town hall meetings and informal forums.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Won't embed, but here you go:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/18/ronald-reagan-being-interrupted-by-reporters-video/

[paft.livejournal.com]

That was during a press briefing -- not during a major speech.