In defense of “freedom of speech,” Al Franken body-slammed a heckler from behind and threw him to the ground at a New Hampshire Dean campaign stop.
“I got down low and took his legs out,” said Franken afterwards.
Franken said he’s not backing Dean but merely wanted to protect the right of people to speak freely. “I would have done it if he was a Dean supporter at a Kerry rally,” he said.
“I’m neutral in this race but I’m for freedom of speech, which means people should be able to assemble and speak without being shouted down.”
Hmmm. Wonder if he’d have done it if it were a Dean supporter at a Bush rally.
Or for that matter, I wonder what the headlines would read if it had been, say, Sean Hannity knocking down a heckler at a Bush rally. Or, for that matter, a Secret Service agent doing the body-slamming.
I have no great fondness for Lyndon LaRouche supporters (whose candidate sort of epitomizes the idea that if you go far enough to the fringe, both the Left and Right circle back together). But I find the idea that assault is a reasonable defense of free speech, or an acceptable way to deal with hecklers, to be more than a bit dubious.
(via Command Post)
Let me get this straight…
You’re adamantly for free speech, so you throw yourself at someone and tackle them because of something they were saying? (Via Dave)…
Something about that story doesn’t ring true…
If it is, though, I think it was the wrong thing to do. There is no “freedom of speech without hecklers” clause that I know of. If you can’t deal with hecklers, then only talk to those who support you. Cordon the rest off in a protest zone. 🙂
How odd…A right wing “news” blog citing a Murdoch owned paper. Only people having never been to New York ever refer to anything in the Post as “news”. Almost as bad as citing the Washington Times. A bit more of a balanced look http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/27/elec04.prez.democrats.larouche/ “target=”new”>here.
Or this from the Union Leader:
“Dean was briefly interrupted by a handful of people who shouted phrases comparing him to Vice President Richard Cheney and called Dean a liar. The protesters said Dean is not a true Democrat and that the only true Democrats are “Lyndon LaRouche and John Kerry.” LaRouche is one of many minor candidates on the Democratic ballot.
When the protesters would not subside after several minutes, they were taken from the theater by security people after some brief pushing and shoving. During the interruption, the crowd loudly chanted pro-Dean slogans. “
Recent court rulings have backed up the whole anti-heckler, anti-free speech rules for “safety” reasons. Also, it seems to be ok to have buses blocking photo ops.
Somewhere, I have an old C.W. McCall song on the subject of free speech in this country.
The CNN story you link says:
Franken, a comedian and self-described liberal well-known for his attacks on the Bush administration and conservative-leaning media, helped carry out one of the disrupters. In the process, Franken’s glasses were knocked off his face and broke in two.
Putting them back together with electrical tape, he quipped he had been “deputized” by Dean’s security.
Different detail shows up here, too. Both indicate Franken’s role was at least more active than the Union-Leader article.
So did the Post (yes, a sensationalistic NYC tabloid) simply fabricate the Franken quotations? Stay tuned.
The Union Leader story now online says:
Two members of Dean’s security team immediately moved in on the man, who shoved and elbowed them, [theater manager] Ramsey said.
“He was screaming. He was out of control,” Ramsey said.
Ramsey said he went over to help calm the situation and also got elbowed and pushed. “All of a sudden, I looked to my right, and Al Franken was grabbing onto this man’s back,” Ramsey said.
“He (Franken) gave him a hefty Patriots block. He should be a Patriot,” Ramsey said.
“I never met Al Franken before. He is now my new hero,” Ramsey said of the former “Saturday Night Live” writer.
Ramsey said a news photographer later told him Franken reacted to being elbowed by the protester, who knocked his glasses off.
The U-L article, though, also includes the Franken quotes from the Post article.
Why wasn’t Franken arrested for assault? I hope the heckler who has his rights violated sues the pants off of Al.
The semi-official Franken news site (linked to from the Official Franken site) comes to Al’s defense.
Smear. The Fox-owned NY Post and conservative magazines have launched a smear campaign against Al Franken by taking one incident out of context. […]
The conservative media will continue to spin this in the way they see fit: Nut-case Franken assaulted an innocent man without warrant. Put Franken in jail! However, as a complete account from people there showed, the conservative media left out crucial details of an affair in which Al helped security guards stop an angry assaulter who attacked others and further presented a danger to the people around him.
The only three quibbles about the site’s analysis:
I’m not trying to paint Franken as a maniac or anything here, but it just seems that the “free speech” defense offered up by him still seems questionable.
We’ll see if anything more comes out on the story.
“But I find the idea that assault is a reasonable defense of free speech, or an acceptible way to deal with hecklers. “
This seems to be missing a word. ‘abhorrent’ perhaps?
Corrected.
As a LaRouche supporter who has witnessed manhandling in another Dean event, and also by Lieberman’s thugs, I can say with authority that the news media has a ‘lot of esplainin’ to do’, as Ricky Ricardo might say. They have been willing participants, along with the Candidates, in the near total censorship of LaRouche from the debates, on the spurious grounds that he was a fringe candidate with extremist views. In fact, he is a traditional FDR style Democrat, something the DLC has been attacking for ages.
How many patriots in our country have been attacked for zeal, or ‘extremism’? Let’s see: John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglas….on and on.
The public had better get wind of the fact that they were used, that the media ‘preselected’ the so-called ‘major’ candidates long before any primary took place, and they are still being used to prejudice our citizens against taking a good look at LaRouche, who not only is an FEC approved legitimate candidate, who is on the ballot in 25 states–he is also tied with Edwards for THIRD place in the FEC standings of leading candidates, in terms of numbers of individual contributors (the only real non-media judge of popular support).
We’re in America, folks, we’re not supposed to swallow whatever we’re fed, no matter how credible the news source appears to be; they are all still in the business of staying inside the bounds of ‘popular opinion’. Look at LaRouche’s website: http://www.LaRouchein2004.com
Laurie Dobson