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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Manly Man Michael Goldfarb

Manly Man Michael Goldfarb

by John Cole|  September 18, 20074:21 pm| 75 Comments

This post is in: Media, Republican Stupidity, Assholes

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And I quote:

What really stands out is his pathetic wailing when the cops tase him. I’ve been tased before, the company’s PR reps hooked me up for a three second jolt at our offices one day and it wasn’t that bad.

Where does the right wing media find this endless stream of douchebags?

And can we arrange to have six cops lie on Michael Goldfarb and taser him? And can I watch? And yes, this is the same Michael Goldfarb who whined in agony about a MoveOn commercial for oh, three-four days. I guess pain is just a perspective thing, ehh, tough guy?

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Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    OxyCon

    September 18, 2007 at 4:24 pm

    If it were a Freeper type right wing lunatic who got tasered for no good reason, Goldfart would be singing a different tune: “I was tasered once, and let me tell you it’s very firghtening and it hurts like hell. You think you are about to have a heart attack and you lose all sense of control.”

  2. 2.

    Shinobi

    September 18, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    You know, I keep wanting to really help society… soo here goes.

    I volunteer to Taser Michael Goldfarb on camera so we can see how tough he really is. (I’ll rough him up a bit too, because I’m a 150% kind of girl.)

    I know it will be a big responsibility, but I’m ready for it.

  3. 3.

    Jay

    September 18, 2007 at 4:36 pm

    Where does the right wing media find this endless stream of douchebags?

    I think these are the guys who crank up the pressure on their paintball guns to see who can “take it”.

  4. 4.

    Fledermaus

    September 18, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    My God, a cop was too quick with a tazer? Alert the media!!

  5. 5.

    Keith

    September 18, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    At least the face behind the tough talk doesn’t resemble the usual posse of hardliners (Kaplans, Hewitt, et al). It’s a bizarro world when talk of crushing enemies and never surrendering comes from the cast of “Superbad” while financial advice is coming from pro-wrestlers and ex-ballplayers.

  6. 6.

    Incertus (Brian)

    September 18, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    Hmm. I guess for Goldfarb, a 3 second jolt when you’re steeling yourself for it is just like 6 shots when you’re being pummeled by cops. No wonder this guy believes in Bush, with that sort of reasoning skill.

  7. 7.

    whippoorwill

    September 18, 2007 at 5:02 pm

    If your a wingnut tough guy tasers don’t affect you, John. These people can bite off chicken heads and drink the blood while the birds feet and wings splay in the wind, or catch 50 Caliber rounds with their teeth, or run 12 miles before breakfest and not break a sweat. Did you know they can have up to 20 orgasms a night (women many more of course]and be ready to go again the next day. Why they’ve won many a desperate battle wiping out whole divisions of Islamofascists, often singlehandedly, and without nary a scratch on their powerful bodies. Of course no one has ever witnessed these feats, but we’ve all read about them.

  8. 8.

    The Other Steve

    September 18, 2007 at 5:17 pm

    I seriously don’t understand why the kid was attacked by the police. He didn’t appear to be a threat to Senator Kerry, and the Senator was more than willing to entertain his questioning.(proving he’s more of a man than Bush)

  9. 9.

    The Other Steve

    September 18, 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Oh what’s also really fascinating about Goldfarb, is that he’s totally ok with it.

    That means if nothing else he is at least consistent with his obnoxious opinions. He was willing to have a heckler arrested at a Democrat’s speech, just as much as at a Republicans.

  10. 10.

    Hart Williams

    September 18, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Goldfarb, who runs The Weekly Standard*’s blog (*William Kristol, Fred Barnes, eds. & owned by Rupert Murdoch), you might recall, spent the summer trying to tear the wings off of a private serving in combat in Iraq (named Scott Thomas Beauchamp) just so’s he could maybe get Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic fired.

    In other words, I am afraid, John, that you owe all douchebags an apology for associating them with Michael Goldfarb.

  11. 11.

    Blue Shark

    September 18, 2007 at 5:44 pm

    And Kerry…

  12. 12.

    Blue Shark

    September 18, 2007 at 5:44 pm

    …standing there picking his nose.

  13. 13.

    chopper

    September 18, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    I seriously don’t understand why the kid was attacked by the police. He didn’t appear to be a threat to Senator Kerry, and the Senator was more than willing to entertain his questioning.(proving he’s more of a man than Bush)

    eh, the guy is a jerk. first off, he bursts up to the front of the line, cutting off a bunch of people who actually followed the rules and were waiting their turn and demands the mic. he starts rambling on for a while, and then when it’s clear he’s a bit of a loon and has gone over his time, refuses to give up the mic. after the mic is cut, he’s all yelling and screaming and being a dick.

    at the very least, he should have been kicked out of the place. apparently, he’s done this sort of disruptive crap before.

    i don’t agree with the tazing tho. i think cops are way too quick with the tazer these days.

    i will note that kerry handled it pretty well. he answered the guy’s ‘question’, but kept the disruption to a minimum.

  14. 14.

    Blue Shark

    September 18, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    TODAY… he is all like “I could have handled it”

    …The kid was questioning why Kerry folded like a cheap suit with 5 million votes that seemed to have been diddled somehow.

    …Kerry is the second biggest douche in Washington and that is saying something (and I sorta voted for him right before my vote flipped electronically to Bush…Thanks Diebold).

  15. 15.

    Zifnab

    September 18, 2007 at 6:06 pm

    at the very least, he should have been kicked out of the place. apparently, he’s done this sort of disruptive crap before.

    i don’t agree with the tazing tho. i think cops are way too quick with the tazer these days.

    That’s both sides of the sordid tale. The guy acted like a jerk – although, when your the man who passively handed over the reigns of government to a trigger-happy half-wit like Bush, you deserve every left-wing nut America has to throw at you – and got dragged off for loosing control of himself. That was bad.

    The cops then proceeded to treat their tazers like handcuffs, assuming that jolting someone with ten thousand volts is effectively the same thing as shoving him in the back of a squad car. We’ve all seen this tazer thing too often. Cops assume they can use the guns whenever they damn well please. It’s freak’n ridiculous. We’re basically inviting the sort of messed up 1984 style society everyone was worried about in the 50s. Somehow, just because a tazer won’t kill you (usually), police officers have received license to use them at will.

  16. 16.

    Jay B.

    September 18, 2007 at 6:10 pm

    What really stands out is his pathetic wailing when the cops tase him.

    It’s the same bullshit you hear when they sit there and guffaw : “What, it’s now torture to listen to loud music and have AC blasted in your cell? Where do I sign up for that, hyuck, hyuck!”

  17. 17.

    RSA

    September 18, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    What really stands out is his pathetic wailing when the cops tase him.

    Real men like Goldfarb are cavalier when it comes to others suffering pain. Or death, for that matter. “I was shot up in Iraq, and it wasn’t that bad.”

  18. 18.

    chopper

    September 18, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    Real men like Goldfarb are cavalier when it comes to others suffering pain. Or death, for that matter. “I was shot up in Iraq, and it wasn’t that bad.”

    ‘course, folks were tougher in those days. i was jitterbuggin’ that very night!

  19. 19.

    Paul L.

    September 18, 2007 at 6:47 pm

    Next time the commenters here tell me to shut up. I am going to use his line to protest the crushing of my dissent.
    DON’T TASE ME BRO!! DON’T TASE ME! OW,OW,OW, OWWWWWWWW!!!

    Of course, the screaming at the top of his lungs and bouncing around like a idiot on meth when asked to leave helped to convince the police to use restraint.

    Where does the right wing media find this endless stream of douchebags?

    If you are having a fit over that quote.
    This quote will make your heads explode.

    Jonah,

    As a conservative who has been arrested for conscience, I believe this guy in FL was nothing more than a great big p***y who thinks the rules do not apply to him.

    Back in the early nineties, I was arrested several times with Operation Rescue. When we did what we did, we knew that we would likely be arrested, many times fined, and in some cases have to do a little jail time. We accepted the fact that we were breaking the law & we had to face the consequences, even if we felt we were obeying a higher law. I have had steel cut off of my body with sparks flying, been dragged, dropped, strangled, and thrown by “unsympathetic” policemen, as well as being maced (more like sprayed like a cockroach) by an angry clinic nurse for sitting in front of a door. My face burned for hours after that last one, and I still never screamed like that left wing sissy. What a colossal wimp.

    The guy quoted being a pro-lifer will only add to your ire.
    BTW, lets not forget this happened on the left’s great bastion of Free speech – the college campus.

  20. 20.

    incontrolados

    September 18, 2007 at 6:53 pm

    This morning on wing-nut radio, tough guys were all ‘the guy squealed like a stuck pig’ and ‘everyone should get to tase someone once a week.’ Mike Gallagher said that some guy who works for Rush believes that everyone should get to kill one person in their lives. And he thought that was a grand idea.

    Now, I would never tase someone, and I hope I’m never in the position to kill someone (very last resort), but I would stand in line to bitch-slap either Gallagher, Rush, or both. Toss is Bill Bennett, and I’d pay for the privlege.

  21. 21.

    Salty Party Snax

    September 18, 2007 at 6:56 pm

    In NY they’ve found much more can be accomplished with a broom stick.

    Though I’m sure Goldfarb has been down that road as well.

  22. 22.

    Dug Jay

    September 18, 2007 at 6:57 pm

    John Kerry’s Online communications guy has this to say about the incident, basically he’s not happy at what happened but he doesn’t give a pass to the asshole for being such an obnoxious prick at Kerry’s speech:

    First of all, it’s a really bad situation. No one wants to see someone get tasered. Sure, the kid was obnoxious and physically resisting, and to a certain extent, when you physically resist cops you do put yourself in a risky situation. Ever see photos of Kerry getting arrested in ’71 for civil disobedience? He and his fellow Vietnam Vets calmly marched off to jail…

    Still, personally speaking, I wish this ended in a number of ways that didn’t involve jolts of electricity. But, since the University of Florida is now reporting that an officer was injured in all of this, I think we know this was an ugly situation to say the least

  23. 23.

    incontrolados

    September 18, 2007 at 7:05 pm

    I may regret asking this, but Paul L., did the guy give the clinic nurse a flower after she maced him? Is there video?

  24. 24.

    RSA

    September 18, 2007 at 7:05 pm

    Though I’m sure Goldfarb has been down that road as well.

    As with tasing, what goes on between consenting adults doesn’t count.

  25. 25.

    Keith

    September 18, 2007 at 7:07 pm

    This does remind me a bit of the stories about 8 year old kids being handcuffed by police at the friggin’ school. It’s no longer a matter of “is this so beyond control that the police are needed?”; now it’s “why should I deal with this problem when people will take it more seriously if I just call the cops and scare folks”. I really would not be surprised to read a story that someone called the cops with charges of assault based on another person farting in their vicinity. Nothing like handcuffs to scare your digestive system into not producing gaseous waste products.

  26. 26.

    jake

    September 18, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    Cops: Excessive force.
    Goldfart: Excessive farce.

    the company’s PR reps hooked me up for a three second jolt at our offices one day and it wasn’t that bad ^they didn’t laugh at me when I wet my pants.

    What a wimp. Only three seconds before he cried for mommy? A real man would’ve insisted that they zap him on the ‘nads for a few hours and hooted “That tickles!” the whole time.

    As for wailing, if it emerges the guy was a resident of Freeperville, RS, we’ll hear all about Kerry ordering the Left Wing Gestapo to torture brave Americans.

  27. 27.

    whippoorwill

    September 18, 2007 at 7:23 pm

    BTW, lets not forget this happened on the left’s great bastion of Free speech – the college campus.

    If the guy had been a wingnut, you guys would have been screeching about how he was a great American hero whose right to free speech had been violated by liberal hate-mongers, or some such shit.

    So please, your sanctimony is embarrasing. And the above remark, I guess has some meaning in the wingnutosphere. Here on earth it’s boorish drivel.

  28. 28.

    Bubblegum Tate

    September 18, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    The guy quoted being a pro-lifer

    He’s also a massive douchebag, so what point do you think you’re making, Paul?

  29. 29.

    tBone

    September 18, 2007 at 7:30 pm

    As for wailing, if it emerges the guy was a resident of Freeperville, RS, we’ll hear all about Kerry ordering the Left Wing Gestapo to torture brave Americans.

    I’m amazed they’re not running with that idea already. John Kerrey is a Nazi free speech hater! This was worse than Waco!!

  30. 30.

    Cassidy

    September 18, 2007 at 7:40 pm

    What really stands out is his pathetic wailing when the cops tase him.

    Stupid should hurt. People would do it less.

  31. 31.

    jake

    September 18, 2007 at 7:50 pm

    A pattern emerges:

    As NRO’s designated chickenhawk, let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake — one of them reportedly a .22.

    At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage — your chances aren’t bad.

    All hail the brave and mighty keyboard Warrior/S&M/Bloodsport fetishists!

  32. 32.

    incontrolados

    September 18, 2007 at 8:03 pm

    Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals

    Not to start that debate again, but this is from someone who doesn’t spend every day on a college campus.

    Stupid should hurt.

    I’d argue it doesn’t hurt anyone at NRO. Or the Weekly Standard. Or wingnut radio. Are you volunteering to get them in line?

  33. 33.

    Paul L.

    September 18, 2007 at 8:19 pm

    He’s also a massive douchebag, so what point do you think you’re making, Paul?

    I thought it was was obvious.
    I wanted to see a little more outrage here. chum the waters.
    Michael Goldfarb comments on his pathetic wailing = outrage.
    pro-life Operation Rescue abortion clinic protester calls him a colossal wimp. = heat of thousand suns/feminists hearing the Duke 3 were innocent outrage.

  34. 34.

    srv

    September 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm

    I’m still mad the John Coles of the Right refused to volunteer for water boarding to prove it wasn’t torture.

    Why nobody liked that idea, I don’t know. I’d have even paid to see it happen.

  35. 35.

    demimondian

    September 18, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    pro-life Operation Rescue abortion clinic protester calls him a colossal wimp. = heat of thousand suns/feminists hearing the Duke 3 were innocent outrage.

    No! No! Say it isn’t so! How do I needle someone who won’t take himself seriously? Paul, if you go spoof on me, I’m going to be reduced to sneering at Cassidy.

  36. 36.

    incontrolados

    September 18, 2007 at 8:59 pm

    Paul L.

    For the love of God, where is the flower?

  37. 37.

    incontrolados

    September 18, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    reduced to sneering at Cassidy

    I take that personally and I will personally tase you. Or play loud music, if I can find you. And given I can find you, I will video tape your ass squealing while I bitch slap you.

    Happy now?

  38. 38.

    The Other Steve

    September 18, 2007 at 10:04 pm

    Apparently this was all a publicity stunt.

  39. 39.

    tBone

    September 18, 2007 at 10:05 pm

    And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage — your chances aren’t bad.

    Why did you bold this quote? It’s true. Getting hit with a .22 is just slap and tickle stuff. It’s certainly no worse than getting a light peppering of birdshot in the face, neck and torso – heck, you’re lucky if you even notice it.

  40. 40.

    Paddy O'Shea

    September 18, 2007 at 10:08 pm

    I don’t suppose this Goldfarb fellow would like to give us a video taped instance of himself chuckling through a jolly tasering?

    I certainly would find that interesting.

  41. 41.

    tBone

    September 18, 2007 at 10:10 pm

    I don’t suppose this Goldfarb fellow would like to give us a video taped instance of himself chuckling through a jolly tasering?

    Where’s Dreggas? He might be able to find something along these lines.

  42. 42.

    DougJ

    September 18, 2007 at 10:36 pm

    I’ve been tased before, the company’s PR reps hooked me up for a three second jolt at our offices one day and it wasn’t that bad.

    Did he really say that? This is kind of like the guy who was whining about losing his grill in the thunderstorms. And the guy who said he thought he could hold up under torture better than those British soldiers.

    Where do these people come from?

  43. 43.

    Fledermaus

    September 18, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Where do these people come from?

    From Manly Super-Hetero Manland, of course. That H2 just doesn’t compensate like it used to.

  44. 44.

    jake

    September 18, 2007 at 11:12 pm

    heck, you’re lucky ^a WATB if you even notice it.

    Fixed.

    Where do these people come from?

    And is there some sort of repatriation program?

  45. 45.

    DougJ

    September 18, 2007 at 11:13 pm

    I thought it was was obvious.
    I wanted to see a little more outrage here. chum the waters.
    Michael Goldfarb comments on his pathetic wailing = outrage.
    pro-life Operation Rescue abortion clinic protester calls him a colossal wimp. = heat of thousand suns/feminists hearing the Duke 3 were innocent outrage.

    What is this? Wingnut haiku?

  46. 46.

    Pb

    September 18, 2007 at 11:16 pm

    …Kerry is the second biggest douche in Washington and that is saying something (and I sorta voted for him right before my vote flipped electronically to Bush…Thanks Diebold).

    …hence the website, johnkerryisadouchebagbutimvotingforhimanyway.com (which used to look like this)…

  47. 47.

    Pb

    September 18, 2007 at 11:23 pm

    What is this? Wingnut haiku?

    Could be. Is “heat of a thousand suns” a seasonal reference?

    I thought it was was
    obvious. I wanted to
    see a little moreoutrage here. chum the
    waters. Michael Goldfarb comments
    on his patheticwailing = outrage.
    pro-life Operation Rescue
    abortion clinicprotester calls him
    a colossal wimp. = heat
    of thousand sunsfeminists hearing
    the Duke 3 were
    innocent outrage.

    almost.

  48. 48.

    DougJ

    September 18, 2007 at 11:26 pm

    Is “heat of a thousand suns” a seasonal reference?

    Could be. Or maybe just a bad translation.

  49. 49.

    J. Michael Neal

    September 18, 2007 at 11:28 pm

    The guy was a jerk. He refused to stop being a jerk when asked. He refused to leave when he was asked. When officers arrived to escort him out, he started resisting. He was swinging his arms around in a way that was dangerous to the officers trying to get him to leave. As they were finally managing to head him towards the door, he kept struggling to get back up front. Once he was down on the ground, he kept struggling and the officers couldn’t get cuffs on him. He had a stupendously large number of opportunities to avoid getting tased, but was too focused on being an asshole to take advantage of any of them.

    If you are being a disruptive idiot at a public function, it is perfectly reasonable to ask you to leave. That’s what whoever is providing security at such a function should do. Unless you disagree with this, every succeeding step the police took was entirely justified, due to Meyer’s complete inability to act like a reasonable person. My sympathy for him is near non-existent.

    None of that changes the fact that Michael Goldfarb is a moron, who should just be tasered on general principles.

  50. 50.

    Pb

    September 18, 2007 at 11:32 pm

    wow, that formatting preview totally didn’t work. Anyhow… you get the idea, and if not, don’t mind me… sorry, guys.

  51. 51.

    babyinthecorner

    September 18, 2007 at 11:41 pm

    So Goldfarb is bragging about a 3-second jolt. Doesn’t the standard taser run in 5-second cycles? He got a single jolt that’s roughly half of what a typical taser victim gets, and he’s bragging? Pussy.

  52. 52.

    DougJ

    September 18, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    The point here, for Paul L. and others, is not that we agree with the “Don’t tase me bro, guy” or that we think he shouldn’t have been tased (though maybe he shouldn’t have), the point is what kind of a whack watches tape of a guy screaming in pain while being tased by six cops and says “Hey, I had some PR reps tase me for a few seconds once and it wasn’t that bad”?

  53. 53.

    demimondian

    September 18, 2007 at 11:54 pm

    Actually, hotter than a thousand suns is a military reference. The original quotation was the title of a book by Robert Jungk, _Brighter than a thousand suns: personal histories of the atomic scientists_ It referred to the brightness of the Trinity blast.

  54. 54.

    DougJ

    September 19, 2007 at 12:16 am

    The original quotation was the title of a book by Robert Jungk, Brighter than a thousand suns: personal histories of the atomic scientists It referred to the brightness of the Trinity blast.

    So you say.

  55. 55.

    TenguPhule

    September 19, 2007 at 12:17 am

    Where does the right wing media find this endless stream of douchebags?

    Extracted from Coulter after every one night stand.

    Enjoy your bleeding eyes.

  56. 56.

    TenguPhule

    September 19, 2007 at 12:19 am

    Getting hit with a .22 is just slap and tickle stuff.

    Someone please tell me this is spoof.

    The alternative is simply horrible.

  57. 57.

    TenguPhule

    September 19, 2007 at 12:22 am

    Stupid should hurt. People would do it less.

    Amazingly, I agree with Cassidy on this.

    Though our definitions of what constitutes stupid can differ quite a bit.

  58. 58.

    josephdietrich

    September 19, 2007 at 12:33 am

    Sadly a rush of updates seems to have caused the evidence to disappear, but the eponymous Jon Swift noted that the usual suspects were all bent out of shape about this when they at first thought it was a conservative rabble-rouser getting tasered for confronting Kerry. When it turned out to be a crrraaaaazy lefty … well, then, not so much.

  59. 59.

    KC

    September 19, 2007 at 12:34 am

    Least the kid was white.

  60. 60.

    rachel

    September 19, 2007 at 12:59 am

    I’m amazed they’re not running with that idea already. John Kerrey is a Nazi free speech hater! This was worse than Waco!!

    Somebody on Daily Kos got there first …and was promply ignored. But still, Daily Kos, folks.

  61. 61.

    D-Chance.

    September 19, 2007 at 2:11 am

    TenguPhule Says:

    Getting hit with a .22 is just slap and tickle stuff.

    Someone please tell me this is spoof.

    The alternative is simply horrible.

    Not a spoof, just John Derbyshire. The same Derb who criticized the British naval guys for being captured and not fighting to the death when surrounded by the Iranians. Death before disservice and God save the Queen!

  62. 62.

    Bruce Moomaw

    September 19, 2007 at 4:17 am

    “Where do these people come from?”

    I’m beginning to suspect that the GOP is secretly breeding them on special farms.

  63. 63.

    Decided FenceSitter

    September 19, 2007 at 5:25 am

    *Chuckle* Having used stun-guns for reasons that probably only Dreggas would approve of, it does make a whole lot of difference regarding body mass, where you get hit, and whether you are ready.

    Personal defense stun guns start at 100,000 volts. I’ve been hit, for the experience only, with a 900,000 volt stun gun. Not an experience I’d like to repeat anywhere where I don’t have a lot of muscle to absorb the shock.

    Stun guns aren’t even rated by the volt; as has been noted elsewhere, it isn’t the voltage, it is the amps. And tasers are measured by the Watt.

  64. 64.

    RSA

    September 19, 2007 at 7:28 am

    Not an experience I’d like to repeat anywhere where I don’t have a lot of muscle to absorb the shock.

    Manly Republicans have a lot of muscle everywhere on their bodies, head included.

  65. 65.

    Cassidy

    September 19, 2007 at 7:54 am

    Though our definitions of what constitutes stupid can differ quite a bit.

    Not really.

    Stupid= resisting 6 or more cops all armed with stun guns who can make your day very unpleasant.

    Stupid= trying to build up your man points by saying that the guy is a pussy for screaming like a girl when tasered. While that fact is amusing in some ways, getting jolted with enough electricity to potentially void your bowels is a good reason to scream. This also goes for trying to equate the 3 sec PR jolt to a full on treatment from the cops.

    Stupid= Trying to say that getting shot doesn’t hurt. Sure a .22 is a small bullet and not likely to be lethal, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt…a lot.

    Personally, I don’t think the cops were all that out of line. I don’t think anyone considered the guy a “threat”, but there does come a point where you have to pacify the subject to make him compliant. A taser in the nads works. Crude, but effective.

  66. 66.

    tBone

    September 19, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Someone please tell me this is spoof.

    The alternative is simply horrible.

    Note to self: wingnuts have raised the crazy bar so high that there’s no such thing as “too over the top.”

  67. 67.

    BIRDZILLA

    September 19, 2007 at 10:04 am

    Perhaps he asked question that JOHN SCARY KERRY didnt want to answer

  68. 68.

    Lupin

    September 19, 2007 at 10:07 am

    Always concentrating on the negative.

    Think of all the people who weren’t tasered that night.

  69. 69.

    demimondian

    September 19, 2007 at 10:25 am

    Manly Republicans have a lot of muscle everywhere on their bodies, head included.

    Why do you think the first National Review clone was at Dartmouth, after all? Conservative he-men have…the granite of New Hampshire // In their muscles and their brains

  70. 70.

    Redleg

    September 19, 2007 at 11:03 am

    These wingnut scribes only provide what the wingnut audience wants. People like Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Malkin only have jobs because a small part of our society likes to listen to school-yard taunts and tall-tales.

  71. 71.

    Cassidy

    September 19, 2007 at 11:21 am

    Perhaps he asked question that JOHN SCARY KERRY didnt want to answer

    I fI understood correctly, Kerry was trying to answer him and asked the police to let him finish.

  72. 72.

    OniHanzo

    September 19, 2007 at 11:41 am

    If the guy had been a wingnut, you guys would have been screeching about how he was a great American hero whose right to free speech had been violated by liberal hate-mongers, or some such shit.

    There’s no wouldas there, whippoorwill. Ace of Spades was all over that angle until Ace found out it was a liberal that was being tazed. Not sure if Google has the cache on it but when I read it one morning, it didn’t look the same later that evening.

  73. 73.

    Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop

    September 19, 2007 at 11:58 am

    Actually, I’ve read a few accounts this morning by people who’ve been tazed regarding how this guy was either a huge puss or was playing up the pain for his little spoof video. Most believe the latter.

    Granted, this was a tangent on a basketball site (where a disproportionate number of posters have run afoul of the cops, apparently), not a political one, so I don’t know for certain whether most — except for the couple obvious Kerry fanboys — were big strong Republican men or noodle-armed Democrat hippie girls or blubbery pimplefaced Naderites… though I’m guessing the Lakers fans were Dems, the Spurs fans were GOPs and the Sonics fans were Greens.

  74. 74.

    Jake

    September 19, 2007 at 12:01 pm

    Conservative he-men have…the granite of New Hampshire // In their muscles and their brains

    Revised Motto: Live scared or die.

    I suspect they’ve got a little bit o’ granite stuck up an orifice to prevent embarrassing incidents when a car backfires.

  75. 75.

    Badtux

    September 19, 2007 at 2:28 pm

    Okay, first of all, why the cops were there in the first place. The organizers of the event cut off questioning because Kerry was going long (duh, the dude never met a mike he couldn’t hog). The line of people waiting to ask Kerry a question were rather disgruntled and swarmed the organizers asking them WTF? Why can’t we ask our questions? That was the point at which the organizers asked the cops to come, which happened about five minutes after they called the cops. So they’re all milling around arguing with the organizers, the cops arrive and start milling around trying to figure out WTF is going on and what they’re supposed to be doing there, this has been going on for over five minutes at this point and this guy who is apparently an unofficial leader of the group that wants to ask questions of Kerry says screw this, and goes up and grabs the mike when Kerry takes a breath and starts asking a question. At some point the cops’ dim awareness kicks in that hey, this guy isn’t supposed to be asking a question, and you see one of them touch him on the shoulder and the dude turns to the cop and says something along the lines of “we’ve been listening to him for two hours, two minutes to ask a question isn’t going to kill anybody”. At that point he apparently forgot the quesiton he was going to ask and starts rambling on about some other thing entirely, at which point the organizers cut the mike and asked the cops to remove him from the auditorium and the cops oblige.

    As for the tasering, in one of the videos you can see that the audience is starting to get a bit upset that one of their fellow students is on the ground apparently underneath a pile of cops, and some people have started getting out of their seats and wandering towards the cops to see what was happening. You can see two cops standing at the back of the auditorium looking out at the audience. One of them apparently says something, and that’s when the taser came out. My personal suspicion is that the cops were afraid they were about to have a riot, and rather than have to defend themselves by beating up a bunch of kids, they decided tasering this one kid and getting him out of that auditorium was the safest thing to do. The lady cop did warn him that he was going to be tasered if he did not comply and leave with them, that’s when he yells “No! don’t taser me!”. The fear of riot theory is backed up by what the lady cop tells him once he’s out in the atrium, which basically is that he got tasered because he was trying to incite a riot with all his yelling of “Why are you arresting me? I didn’t do anything! Help! Help!”, which undoubtedly was true despite the kid’s immediate protestation “start a riot? No way!”.

    In short, once the original bad decision was made to comply with the organizer’s request to remove this kid (a representative of a dozen other kids who wanted to ask a question) from the auditorium, the only choices facing the cops were similar to those facing us in Iraq: Bad, and worse. They decided that tasering the kid was the least bad alternative given that the aisle was too narrow for them to carry him out bodily given his thrashing and that the rest of the students were starting to work themselves up to the point where there may have been a lot of busted heads and injured cops and riot squads and all sorts of badness that they certainly didn’t want. So they made the least bad choice available to them in their judgement, escalated to the taser, and once they got him out of the auditorium into a setting where it was feasible, de-escalated to non-violent means (the lady cop talked him down until he agreed to leave with them).

    In short, there was a lot going on there that hasn’t come out in the press yet. There were a lot of bad decisions made everywhere, from the organizers cutting off questioning because of Kerry’s long-windedness despite dozens of people who wanted to ask questions, to the decision to eject this kid in the first place. But the decision to taser the kid wasn’t one of those bad decisions. Given the situation, it was arguably the least-bad decision that could be made by the cops once the original bad decisions started cascading towards possible disaster. One kid mildly electrocuted is less violence than a dozen kids and half-dozen cops with the crap beat out of them on any scale of violence. The evil is that this situation arose in the first place, not that once it arose, the cops chose what could be argued was the least violent means to resolve it.

    As for the douchbag who insists that a taser charge to the shoulder is not painful, yeah right. I’ll volunteer to taser him several times just to listen to him cry like a baby and laugh when he shits his pants. What an asshole.

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