When CongressCritters Attack!

[ravdin]

People can get a little bit goofy when their personal space is violated. I would expect better from a Congressman, but I can see someone getting a bit bent out of shape by the way the students were acting. There's a natural, rather primitive, reaction when a person's hand rapidly approaches another person's face. It isn't odd that it triggered a brief "fight or flight" response. The weird thing was that he didn't calm down right away and went on with his "Who are you?" schtick. It kind of gave me the creeps.

My theory is that Etheridge was drunk. These members of Congress really are a menace when they're out in public.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Ken, why is it so difficult to understand? Why is this guy not in jail?

I can imagine just how much more crowded the prisons would be if you had your way.

 

[Ziggurat]

People can get a little bit goofy when their personal space is violated. I would expect better from a Congressman

I demand better from my congressman.

The weird thing was that he didn't calm down right away and went on with his "Who are you?" schtick. It kind of gave me the creeps.

That and the whole "I have a right to know" bit. What powers does he think he has? And why are we trusting government to people who think they have such powers? It's very creepy.

Lefty doesn't mind, though, because he's an authoritarian at heart. So long as it's a democrat, of course.

 

[Meadmaker]

My theory is that Etheridge was drunk.

I think you are right.

 

[leftysergeant]

I thought that this incident had a familiar stench about it, and it seems I was right. It seems to have come out of Breitbart's lower torso. Those aint students, people. They're thugs from the same stable that gave us pimp boy and the ho.

http://abc.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7496362

And take a closer look at what is recorded by which camera. It is pretty clear to me that the Breitbart maggot closest to Etheridge had to have come into contact with the congressman just before the camera was grabbed.

Busted.

 

[Freddy]

I thought that this incident had a familiar stench about it, and it seems I was right. It seems to have come out of Breitbart's lower torso. Those aint students, people. They're thugs from the same stable that gave us pimp boy and the ho.

http://abc.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7496362

And take a closer look at what is recorded by which camera. It is pretty clear to me that the Breitbart maggot closest to Etheridge had to have come into contact with the congressman just before the camera was grabbed.

Busted.

As stupid as the question was, the Congressman's reaction was stupider. It doesn't matter if the questioner is a neo-nazi, you don't initiate physical contact when asked a simple (albeit stupid) question. I see that you now realize that, although I'm disappointed that your reaction is to claim that if you squint really hard, it looks like maybe the Congressman did not initiate contact. Sorry, but he obviously did.

 

[NoZed Avenger]

I didn't hear the kid say that. Plus, it's easy enough to get a person's grip off of your wrist. It's easy to stop someone from grabbing your neck as well.

I'm a little unclear why this would matter, even assuming the kid should have been prepared to fight off a Congressman.

 

[leftysergeant]

As stupid as the question was, the Congressman's reaction was stupider. It doesn't matter if the questioner is a neo-nazi, you don't initiate physical contact when asked a simple (albeit stupid) question.

Did you read the article I linked to? They were not there to ask him questions. A gang of the monkeys had been harrassing Democrats on the scene for some time prior to this incident. Typical teatrash tactic. They want to play the victim, like Metzger's murderers.

I see that you now realize that, although I'm disappointed that your reaction is to claim that if you squint really hard, it looks like maybe the Congressman did not initiate contact. Sorry, but he obviously did.

The dirtbaggers were not trying to interview him, they were trying to set him up. That's why they have two cameras with NO continuous streaming of the chain of events. Take another look at how the camera focuses (or fails to focus) on Etheridge's face. I see no way that the thug could have NOT come into contact with Etheridge before he grabbed the camera.

Even making a motion that looks like an attempt to poke a person in the face can be considered an assault in some jurisdicitons. It was a physical action intended to cause fear of harm. Busted.

 

[leftysergeant]

I'm a little unclear why this would matter, even assuming the kid should have been prepared to fight off a Congressman.

Give it a rest. He was there to harrass the congressman, he should expect to have to defend his worthless self.

Have you people given any thought to why these little snots have their faces blurred out? Do you know their names? Think about it, people. This is just Breitbart trying to manufacture more pointless rubbish for nefarious purposes.

 

[Nova Land]

Those who are calling for Etheridge to be arrested and charged with assault for this incident might also wish to alert the authorities to another politician who committed a similar offense and is still running free: senator John Cornyn of Texas.

In October 2009 Mike Stark approached Cornyn, with camera, to ask him a question about one of his votes. Stark asks the question in a polite tone of voice (as can be heard on a brief video) and in what appears to be a non-threatening way. Cornyn gets huffy, indicates Stark has no right to be approaching him or asking questions, and attempts to slap the camera away. Failing to slap the camera out of Stark's hands, Cornyn then tries to grab the camera away. (The video is not clear on Cornyn's actions, because the camera taking the picture is the one being slapped, but Stark's account seems straightforward and, as far as I know, has not been disputed by Cornyn.)

Even though Cornyn's act of assault occurred in public and was witnessed by a security guard, no action was taken against him. Today, Cornyn is still walking around, a free man, free to commit similar acts of assault against others. Those who are sincerely upset about the one incident -- and not simply engaging in gotcha politics -- should be upset about the other as well. *

edited to add: Oops. In writing this post, and then removing some unnecessary stuff I'd written, I accidentally also edited out several links to accounts of this incident:

1. Phillip Martin's at Burnt Orange Report: "John Cornyn Punches At 'Reporter" Who Asks Him About His Vote to Protect Companies Who Ignore Rape"
2. Mike Stark at The Crooked Dope: "Senator Cornyn physically assaulted me today"
3. Mike Stark at Daily Kos ("John Cornyn physically assaults me"



(And the same thing for those who are sincerely unconcerned about either one.)

 

[Nova Land]

From October 2009, here is Stark's account of the incident:

Certainly not a beat-down, or anything like it, but if I had behaved toward him the way he did to me, I woulda been spread-eagle on the floor with guns trained on me.

He got off the Hart Senate office building subway, just like any number of Senators before him. I pointed the flip cam at him and began walking with him, asking him about the Franken amendment. He tried to slap the camera out of my hand and then tried to grab it from me. Fortunately I was filming the whole time.

I’m wondering how to play it. It was clear that I didn’t want to be touched, and if I remember correctly, any unwanted touching constitutes assault. I’m making the video public and demanding an apology. Without one, I will file a criminal complaint against the Senator.

And from earlier this week, here is Stark's explanation of why there was no prosection of Cornyn:

No charges because:

1) not all assaults are prosecuted; most minor assaults are ignored. If we prosecuted every push and shove, we’d have pretty long lines at the court house, wouldn’t we?

2) happened on Capitol grounds where, believe it or not, Senators and Representatives are above the rule of law; it doesn’t reach them. Instead they are held accountable by the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms according to rules they set for themselves. When John Cornyn did something similar to me, I tried to file a complaint with Capitol Police. I was told that I couldn’t...

And regarding a separate incident, at a campaign rally, in which Stark as blogger-journalist was assaulted (but not by a senator or congressional rep):

4) the prosecutor in Charlottesville declined prosecution of the gentlemen that assaulted me at the George Allen event. And it was within his discretion to do so. It’s always been the law that you cannot compel a prosecutor to embark on any prosecution...

Establishing some ground rules on ambush journalism would be good. Generally politicians do not assault reporters who have set up appointments for interviews. But there are a number of incidents where people have reacted hostilely when someone attempts to film or interview them unexpectedly. As I recall, for example, Bill O'Reilly, reacted with extreme hostility when he was approached in this way, and roundly denounced such action on the air. What are the rights of people interested in asking questions of public figures as far as approaching them, and what are the rights of public figures as far as avoiding such encounters? We need some consistent principles -- not simply it's okay to do it if I agree with the people asking the questions and not okay if I don't.

 

[Nova Land]

And, having looked up Mike Stark to get details of the October 2009 incident, I was pleased to find he has a good post on his site commenting on the Etheridge incident: Etheridge and my experience as a free-lance reporter on the Hill.

Let’s dispense with the obvious: Etheridge assaulted the kid. Assaults like this happen every day in any number of contexts and are very rarely prosecuted, so I’m not willing to go so far as Glenn Greenwald and say that Etheridge should be arrested and tried. Moreover, I’m fairly certain this happened on Capitol Grounds which is a kind of magical area for Senators and Members of Congress in which they are virtually immune from arrest. This is a murky area of law; so far as I understand the Constitution gives Congress the power to make their own rules and they are responsible for policing themselves...

Etheridge is not a lonely perp when it comes to lawmakers somehow believing they have the right to lay hands on people they consider to be disagreeable. Recall my incident with John Cornyn – a former Attorney General! I learned that the Capitol Police cannot take a complaint against a Senator or Member of Congress. Any compliant must be filed with the Sergeant at Arms.

There have been several other minor assaults that I haven’t reported (including one by another former prosecutor, now a Representative). Innumerable staff have laid unwanted hands upon me. I’ve stopped reporting these incidents for several inter-related reasons.

The first is that they are invariably trivial; nobody is punching me in the face or tackling me or engaging in any real violence. Instead it’s been staff deliberately walking into me to separate me from the principal they are protecting (most common) or aggressive touching to either block the camera or turn me around so that I’m not pointing the camera at them... In short, the behaviors are obnoxious and annoying (and inexcusable), but not truly threatening or fear-inducing.

Stark also has a very good section explaining that he is no longer as inclined to press charges because he is better now at seeing this kind of incident from the other person's point of view. While Cornyn's response to his actions was not good, Stark understands now that his own inexperience and bad assumptions contributed a great deal to the problem. It would be nice if the two "students" involved in the Etheridge incident some day reach this level of maturity.

Stark's post is very well-thought out, and the section on seeing things through from other people's perspectives is especially well-written. I strongly recommend clicking the link and reading the entire post. But for those of you without the time or inclination to do so, here's an excerpt from this section which I hope conveys the gist:

It turns out that, for the most part, these folks will give you a few minutes. Not all of them do – Bernie Sanders, for example, hasn’t given me diddly, even as he tells progressives that we need a progressive press to counter the right’s noise machine – but a sizable majority are willing to spend a couple of minutes speaking with me when I’ve got something to ask. Ultimately, I’ve learned that the Rachel Maddow approach is much better than that of Jason Mattera or the two kids that approached Etheridge. So now I introduce myself, ask if they’d take a few questions on video (or audio if they prefer), accept their answer (if it’s “no” I give them my card and tell them that I hope they’ll find time in the future) and establish with them that I’m not an *******, I’m a journalist. I suspect that if I had taken that approach with Senator Cornyn, he’d be willing to talk with me from time to time.

 

[Nova Land]

Two more points that Stark raises seem worth mentioning (although if people want to discuss these, perhaps they should be spun off to a split thread).

One concerns how common it is for [citizen-journalists] / [blogger-journalists] / [ambush journalists] / [whatever-we-call-them] to encounter problems which people in the traditional media are spared. And the answer is, fairly common. When Cornyn assaulted Stark, it was Stark who was detained. And that isn't by any means the only time Stark has been detained:

There are cameras everywhere in DC that capture every square inch, both inside the buildings and outside. Every movement is recorded, if not observed. When Cornyn assaulted me (it was an assault), a cop was standing less than 15 feet away. I had followed every rule and been completely within my legal rights (even if my actions were less than optimally social). But I was the one detained. For about 30 minutes.

That was far from the only time I’ve been detained for being a journalist and asking unwelcome questions. Virginia Foxx alone has reported me to the Capitol Police on at least five occasions. Each time they detain me for 15-20 minutes while they run a check for warrants and establish that I’ve done nothing wrong. all in all, I’ve been through the experience at least 25 times.

What's uncommon, then, is not for these new journalists to be treated in ways that might cause concern. It's for stories about this treatment to get serious attention in the major media outlets.

So, despite the fuss being made about the treatment of the two "students" in the Etheridge incident, and how their mistreatment is being ignored or dismissed, it seems just the opposite is happening: they are receiving more attention, and being treated more seriously, than others to whom similar things have happened.

...one last point on the Etheridge video. Compare it to the Cornyn video. Any difference is superficial, at best. The Etheridge video has been seen far and wide; Politico did an entire story on it and it was splayed across our tv sets all day yesterday. The Cornyn video was mentioned in passing in a Politico story about an entirely different subject (the Republican objection to being asked questions about the Franken Amendment), but was otherwise not seen anywhere except DailyKos and starkReports (the two places I posted it). If you doubt the existence of a Republican noise-machine, let this be a lesson.

 

[Nova Land]

Digby, at Hullabaloo, has a post in which she writes:

This idea that politicians, regardless of party affiliation, are allowed to assault citizens who ask them questions is beyond the pale, no matter who the questioner is. It's a tough gig, I know, but they chose it and they have to be answerable to the people. Even if one of them is an Andrew Breitbart stooge (which this kid probably wasn't, btw.)

But it should be noted that this kind of thing is hardly unprecedented and it never gets prosecuted. Recall Mike Stark questioning George Allen?

Included is this video of the incident in which Stark is assaulted by Allen staffers for attempting to ask questions the senator did not want to answer. And this is much more clearly an assault than what happened to the two "students" in the Etheridge incident; one can see in the video Stark being roughly grabbed, held, dragged, and thrown on the floor. (The video is 2 1/2 minutes, but the relevant portion, showing Stark being manhandled, is from the 35 to 50 second mark.)

The story was reported at the time -- as should be obvious from it's inclusion in this local tv news segment -- but primarily as simply an incident that occurred at a campaign stop. I do not recall widespread calls for prosecution of the staffers involved.

 

[Meadmaker]

To paraphrase a movie...*

Lefty's right.....Psychotic, but right.

If these guys were not two students on a project, but actually people who had been harassing other Congressmen and others as part of some sort of Breitbart activity, then I would lose whatever sympathy I had for them.

I had the impression that they were just two kids who, typically of kids throughout the ages but especially in the last few decades, thought that they were entitled to harass people as they tried to go about their business.

If they were put up to this by some other person or organization, to heck with 'em. They're liars. Etheridge still gave me the creeps, and I still think he may have been drunk, but I have no sympathy for ambush mobs of pseudo-journalists.

As for the legality of Etheridge's actions, any time there is unwanted physical contact between two people, there's the potential for criminal charges, but no ordinary citizen would ever be charged in a similar incident, unless of course the local cops had an axe to grind for some other reason.


====================
*Animal House, for you youngsters.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Haven't seen a thread here 'bout Battlin' Bob Etheridge.

Hope no-one's missed out.

http://biggovernment.com/mikeflynn/2010/06/14/long-hot-summer-begins-congressman-attacks-student/

I have to wonder what kind of "man" this guy is? Not the congressman, but the skirtboy asking the questions. I mean, if someone grabs my wrist like that, they'll soon find themselves staring at the clouds, if they are lucky. Or in dreamland if they are not.

 

[Ziggurat]

To paraphrase a movie...*

Lefty's right.....Psychotic, but right.

If these guys were not two students on a project, but actually people who had been harassing other Congressmen and others as part of some sort of Breitbart activity, then I would lose whatever sympathy I had for them.

This isn't about sympathy for the students. It's about what kind of behavior is acceptable for our elected officials. And this was way over the line of acceptable. It doesn't matter what you think those two students deserved. If prison guards started sodomizing Charles Manson with broom handles, is that OK? Of course not. Whether or not he "deserves" it, whether or not you "sympathize" with him, it's not OK for them to do.

Same thing here: it doesn't matter how much of an annoying prick these kids were, a congressman has no right to assault them (and it was assault), he has no right to demand their identities, and the sense of entitlement he displayed ("I have a right to know") is deeply troubling. And we should be outraged by his behavior: not for their sake, but for ours.

 

[Ziggurat]

I have to wonder what kind of "man" this guy is? Not the congressman, but the skirtboy asking the questions. I mean, if someone grabs my wrist like that, they'll soon find themselves staring at the clouds, if they are lucky. Or in dreamland if they are not.

Then you're a fool. If you punch a congressman in DC, it won't matter if the congressman started it by grabbing you: the cops are going to bust YOUR ass.

 

[LashL]

Several posts have been moved to AAH and a couple of infractions have been issued. Please keep it civil, refrain from name-calling, and stick to the topic of the thread - which is not each other. Thanks in advance.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Then you're a fool. If you punch a congressman in DC, it won't matter if the congressman started it by grabbing you: the cops are going to bust YOUR ass.

Wrong.