Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Come on, man.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Let me file that under fuck it.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

75% of people clapping liked the show!

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Fight them, without becoming them!

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

“But what about the lurkers?”

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

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Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    ? Martin

    Considering how hard Grassley worked to fuck over health care reform after being an advocate for it, is he really surprised?

  3. 3.

    Ben Cisco

    So, he’s pining for him?

    I can’t even come up with an accurate adjective for this…hmmm…

    Whiny, bleating, pompous, self-absorbed, privileged, condescending, squidcloud-of-butthurt expelling asshole.

  4. 4.

    Jerzy Russian

    And if Mr. Obama called up Mr. Grassley from time to time, I bet Mr. Grassley would find some way to bitch about the excessive “interference” or “intimidation” from the Executive Branch.

  5. 5.

    c u n d gulag

    This is another example of politics, as either JHS, or HS.

    “Gee, after that new guy at our school invited me over to his house 4 years ago to see if I could help him with his homework – since I’d been at the school for a while and knew what the teachers wanted – and as soon as I got there, I spit at him, called him, “stupid,” and told him I’d do everything I possibly could to ruin his reputation at the school – now I’m hurt.
    I wonder why he hasn’t call me in the last few years?”

  8. 8.

    dedc79

    “I mean, sure i told my constituents that his health care plan would create death panels that would systematically euthanize old people, but, come on, water under the bridge…”

  9. 9.

    Violet

    Aww…Chuck Grassley as spurned wannabe girlfriend. Gotta be a reality show in there somewhere. “Real Whiners of D.C.”

  12. 12.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    “We had a meeting down at the White House about Aug. 5, 2009 — the six of us — and he asked me this question: ‘Would you be willing to be one or two or three Republicans voting with the Democrats to get a bipartisan bill?’ and I said, ‘No,’ ” Grassley recalled.

    “I never had a phone call from him since,” Grassley added.

    As part of his charm offensive, Obama has twice dined with groups of Senate Republicans. Grassley wasn’t invited.

    I don’t make it a habit of calling people who refuse to back me up when I need their support most, why should Obama?

    Swear to God, any random high school has more mature and responsible people in it than Congress does.

  13. 13.

    FourTen

    Shorter Masser Grassley

    That boy hasn’t steppen’d or fetched it in four years.

  16. 16.

    Villago Delenda Est

    MY heart pumps buttermilk for the vile Rethug tool Grassley.

    Go pound sand, asswipe.

  18. 18.

    Punchy

    Grassley’s just pissed b/c he’s had to pick all his own cotton these past 4 years. Just where was Obama when Chuck really needed him?

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @tom:

    Perhaps mistermix has more than one heart? Would that explain the “e”?

  22. 22.

    MGB

    Not to be the grammar police, but technically, it is “Mein Herz schwimmt im Blut.”

    Heh…German grammar police.

  23. 23.

    TR

    All I did was work in complete bad faith with the president, completely flip-flop on my position on the individual mandate that was the centerpiece of his health care proposal, publicly call him “stupid” and spread total lies about “death panels” and other assorted bullshit, and he hasn’t reached out to me ever since!

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @MGB:

    Heh…German grammar police.

    “Ve haff vays in Berlin of making you conjugate that are most unpleasant, I assure you!”

  25. 25.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    I’ll admit I thought Chuck Grassley was killed in the Obamacare Death Panels. Maybe Obama thought he got him.

  29. 29.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @MGB: Well, either that or mistermix has very unusual anatomy and meant to say, “Meine Herzen schwimmen im Blut.”

  33. 33.

    Tractarian

    @TR:

    Wonder why the article doesn’t mention any of those important facts. It’s almost as if they are just acting as stenographers for Grassley.

    Maybe they though Grassley’s comments were so comical that they stand on their own?

  35. 35.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Is it possible Obama has indeed called but Grassley doesn’t know how to operate his Jitterbug mobile phone and can’t retrieve his voice mails?

  36. 36.

    danimal

    When I first read this, my first thought was “Grassley is a big dick.”

    Nothing has changed my mind.

  37. 37.

    Mandalay

    @TenguPhule:

    Grassely must be one hell of a lousy lay.

    Maybe, but he’s certainly good at fucking people in the ass, and stabbing them in the back.

    I wonder if that might be why Obama never calls him?

  39. 39.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Tractarian:

    It’s almost as if they are just acting as stenographers for Grassley.

    /Claude Rains voice

    I’m shocked, shocked!

  42. 42.

    scav

    Maybe he was aiming to explain how he rented a car in a very dodgy part of town? Up to the hubcaps in gore, they were.

  45. 45.

    The Dangerman

    Quick, everyone call Chuck’s phone and identify yourself as being from the White House.

    “Hey, Chuck, do you have Prince Albert in a can?”

  47. 47.

    jibeaux

    You want a booty call, you’re gonna have to live up to the name GrASSley….

  48. 48.

    jibeaux

    Seriously, unless Obama has a road he wants blocked, I don’t know why he’d call a Republican senator.

  50. 50.

    FlipYrWhig

    I still think not mobilizing to knock out this dipshit when he was up for re-election in 2010 was one of the liberal/left/”netroots”/Democratic Party’s most regrettable lost opportunities. At least give it Lincoln/Halter levels of engagement. You ought to be able to get solid liberalism out of Iowa and Iowans, certainly compared to Arkies (for better or worse, my ancestral people).

  51. 51.

    JCJ

    @MGB:

    You and Tom beat me to it. I was just on vacation in Germany last week so my brain is still half thinking in German. I am glad to have other members of the German grammar police force.

    @Amir Khalid, MGB and @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    You are all way to fast for me. Die deutsche Grammatikpolizisten herrschen über alles!

  56. 56.

    jake the snake

    @Amir Khalid:

    An old acquaintance of mine used to say, “My heart pumps piss for you” to indicate his lack of sympathy.
    Now I know where it originated.

  57. 57.

    Todd

    This is how it has always worked when somebody friendzones somebody else rudely.

    Chuck, 2008: “I am just not into you that way, Barack, but we can still be friends. Just don’t let any of my friends know we’re friends.”
    Barack, 2009-2013: (snub)
    Chuck, 2013: “Why don’t you want to be my friend, Barack? What did I do to make you hate me?”

  62. 62.

    Brendan in NC

    i hate to tell Chuck, but his other friends, Reason and Sanity, stopped calling him earlier than Barack did.

  64. 64.

    eemom

    @JPL:

    Same reason they were portraying Medea Benjamin as a hero at the last Hecklergate, I guess.

  66. 66.

    MikeJ

    @eemom: Vegetables and sleeveless dresses are all that’s stopping marriage equality. Michelle Obama is history’s greatest monster.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    We were talking about it yesterday. The whining is pretty fascinating:

    “Basically, I was asked by the first lady to be quiet, and I can’t be quiet any longer,” Sturtz told the Huffington Post. “I was surprised by how negative the crowd seemed to be. It was actually a little unsettling and disturbing.”

    It sounds like Sturtz expected to be able to interrupt an event that other people had paid good money to attend and win the crowd over to her side, and was upset because other people there told her to STFU. How delusional do you have to be to expect that?

  70. 70.

    Trollhattan

    Do we have any evidence, any whatsoever, that Sen. Grassley knows how to operate a telephonic communications device? I’m not willing to extend that stipulation on blind faith.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    @JPL:

    Why are some portraying a heckler as a victim?

    Because she’s a white woman who was asked to be quiet by a black woman.

    No, seriously. Kurtz herself says she was “asked to be quiet,” which is apparently the worst crime ever committed against free speech. I’m not sure which interpretation of “free speech” says that the person being interrupted isn’t allowed to respond or ask the interrupter to be quiet, but it seems to be prevalent among some firebaggers.

  74. 74.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Maybe someone cleaned “For a good time, call Chuck Grassley” off the downstairs men’s bathroom stall in the White House?

  75. 75.

    burnspbesq

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Maybe someone cleaned “For a good time, call Chuck Grassley” off the downstairs men’s bathroom stall in the White House?

    You knew when you wrote it that that was likely to happen.

  77. 77.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mnemosyne:
    Well, she paid her $500 to get in too. And that entitled her to do whatever she pleased, including heckle the speaker everyone else paid to hear.

  78. 78.

    balconesfault

    From the article:

    Grassley blasted the president for failing to keep his promise, made at the start of his first term, to run the most transparent administration in history.
    …
    Grassley said the president has fallen far short of that pledge.

    “Historically in my time in the Senate, I’ve had problems with both Republican and Democratic presidents, but this president is the worst from this standpoint — his own benchmark,” Grassley said. “By his own benchmark this is the most stonewalling president this country has ever had.”

    Grassley doesn’t actually SAY which was the most transparent administration. Carter, maybe?

    That aside, it doesn’t matter that say Bush or Reagan may have stonewalled more in an absolute send … because Obama promised to be better. And therefore there’s a different metric to judge him by. Or something.

  79. 79.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @balconesfault:

    Grassley doesn’t actually SAY which was the most transparent administration. Carter, maybe?

    Nixon. It was all over the television for a year and a half.

  81. 81.

    Citizen_X

    “That Barack HUSSEIN Obama, he’s not even American! He’s not even a Christian! He’s a dictator, an incompetent, he’s with our enemies, and he…he…sob!…he never calls! Booo hoohoooo!” [Runs away.]

  82. 82.

    ericblair

    @Trollhattan:

    Do we have any evidence, any whatsoever, that Sen. Grassley knows how to operate a telephonic communications device?

    Isn’t he the guy who tweets things like “przdnt Obummer dsnt want to talk to meeee y idunno very dscraging #worstpreznitEVAR &*^$*#(NO CARRIER”? Or is that some ten year old kid he keeps chained up in the storage room?

  84. 84.

    patroclus

    Grassley made himself irrelevant in August 2009 – talk to him, don’t talk to him, his votes not going to change (on any issue, let alone his “signature” issue of an individual mandate to provide health insurance to the uninsured), so why bother?

    ENDA has no chance so long as the Republicans remain so relentlessly anti-gay, but Obama should sign the EO applicable to the federal government. I think the heckler would have been less rude and more convincing by merely asking a question during the Q and A period or by staying after the formal presentation to ask a question privately.

  86. 86.

    Maude

    @Trollhattan:
    I don’t think he knows how to do much of anything. His fee fees are hurt.
    I was fluent in German and I can’t understand what people here have written in it.

  90. 90.

    Trollhattan

    @mistermix:

    Must give a shout-out to the Lorraine Hunt Lieberson recording of this, in her collection of Bach cantatas. A stunning performance on its own merit that becomes heart-wrenching when you learn she would succumb to breast cancer three short years after recording it, having already endured the death of her sister from the same affliction. She sings “Ich habe genug” with the conviction of somebody facing her own mortality with savage certainty.

  91. 91.

    liberal

    Douchbaggery endless—WashPost “afternoon buzz” is telling me: “Cuccinelli says he might be latest IRS target: AG says agency is withholding $125 million owed to Va., possibly in retaliation for his lawsuits.”

  93. 93.

    RSA

    @MGB:

    Heh…German grammar police.

    No one expects the German grammar police!

    (Well, actually, we do…)

  96. 96.

    Trollhattan

    @RSA:

    I don’t live in a Low Country but I do have friends in low places, so I expect grammar Panzers next.

  98. 98.

    balconesfault

    @patroclus:

    Grassley made himself irrelevant in August 2009 – talk to him, don’t talk to him, his votes not going to change (on any issue, let alone his “signature” issue of an individual mandate to provide health insurance to the uninsured), so why bother?

    That’s pretty much the entire GOP Senate caucus, isn’t it? I have a hard time believing that any non-wingnut reporters can carry off an interview with any of these drama queens without rupturing a spleen from repressing laughter.

  99. 99.

    Amir Khalid

    @Maude:
    We were just exchanging banter about the post headline. And doing a roll call of die Balloon Juicer deutsche Grammatikpolizei — the BJ German grammar police.

  101. 101.

    Maude

    @Amir Khalid:
    Ah, no wonder.
    I had a very hard time speaking it when I was first in a German speaking country. You should have seen people’s faces.
    I’m not fluent now.
    Thought I was slipping a few brain cells.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @Maude:

    I almost feel sorry for them. The story I read about it yesterday said that they didn’t realize that their major fundraisers were involved with multiple areas of women’s health, including Planned Parenthood, so they had no clue that dissing PP would piss off the people who were raising most of the money for Komen. Ooopsie!

  108. 108.

    Amir Khalid

    @Maude:
    Haven’t been anywhere near Germany since I was a toddler. I taught myself German a few years ago from an Oxford University Press self-instruction kit and a grammar textbook.
    ETA: I don’t get much opportunity to practice conversation, though; as you might guess, KL is not exactly full of German speakers.

  109. 109.

    patroclus

    @balconesfault: Pretty much the entire caucus but not all of them. McCain responds to flattery on some issues; Kirk and Collins are talk-to-able; Murkowski on some issues; Isakson somewhat; Hatch on occasion; Alexander somewhat. But not Grassley – he was Mr. Individual Mandate for over a decade; pretending that he cared about uninsured Americans with no health care and he completely tanked and parroted right wing talking points and lies. And has basically kept it up for nearly 4 years. The reason Obama hasn’t called Grassley is that it would be a complete waste of time.

  111. 111.

    Cassidy

    @Mnemosyne: Nope. Not a single bit. Hopefully it folds. They decided to inject their personal jeebus into what was supposed to be a scular entity and thye did it at a time when PP was a highly polarizing topic. They picked a side and they lost. Apparently her sister’s death isn’t as important as preaching to everyone. Fuck’em.

  112. 112.

    gelfling545

    @Mnemosyne: Soehow, I doubt many people would pay $500 to hear Ms. Kurtz. She made her point. She should be satisfied with that and stop whining about it.

  113. 113.

    JPL

    @Amir Khalid: The forum was a speech. It was not a town hall meeting where back and forth is allowed. She was rude and lacks common decency if she can’t recognize the difference. Rudeness has nothing to do with how much she paid.

  114. 114.

    pat

    @mistermix:
    I believe the modern German is correct with “Mein Herz.”

    I just did a quick search and it seems a LOT of CDs and articles use “Herze” and a LOT use “Herz.” Maybe it was different in Bach’s day……

    Any German / Bach scholars out there?

  116. 116.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Trollhattan: I was pretty sure it would be upheld. Easiest thing for Connelly to do. I need to go through the opinion some more. Salton Sea and Imperial County get the short end of the stick while San Diego benefits. I was hoping that some of the enviro issues would survive but they’ll have to start anew.

    The 2003 accord was an improvement but didn’t go far enough. Eventually we’re going to have to change pricing to reflect scarcity.

    What did you think?

  117. 117.

    Trollhattan

    @Cassidy:

    Her pulling down well over $600k/year comes across as a lot less “doing good in my sister’s memory” and a lot more “this is an awesome gig I have here.”

    FWIW the recent local Run for the Cure drew half as many runners as in ’12.

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    ChuckGrassley ✔ @ ChuckGrassley
    Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law

  120. 120.

    Trollhattan

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Confess it’s pretty far off my radar, although there’s an indirect impact given SWP deliveries to SD County via…MWD? Crap, I can’t keep track.

  121. 121.

    Keith G

    @Amir Khalid: Yup, the heckler should neither be portrayed as a victim or as a hooligan. MO was speaking at a political event. That was her choice. In that arena, heckling is a reality (as is cell phone recording).

    If you can’t take the heat,….

  122. 122.

    Davis X. Machina

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Eventually we’re going to have to change pricing to reflect scarcity.

    The temerity! To suggest a market-based solution!

  123. 123.

    Amir Khalid

    @JPL:
    Per the Washington Post:

    Sturtz said she paid $500 to attend the fundraiser, part of a protest cooked up by the gay rights group GetEqual, which gained notice in Obama’s first term for hectoring him during speeches and demanding more action on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

    Ellen Sturz made a point of mentioning how much she paid to get in, although like you I don’t see its relevance. And she and her group have heckled Barack Obama’s speeches before, apparently in the belief that it’s the right way to go about … well, “protesting” doesn’t seem the right word for demanding that the President do what he wants to do, and is planning to do in any case.

  124. 124.

    Keith G

    @JPL: It was a political event. Protest might be a bit boorish, but not exceptional. It is a right all of us enjoy and more of us might want to use.

  125. 125.

    IowaOldLady

    Cripes. This guy is one of my senators, and yet it’s the other one who’s retiring.

    Why would anyone call Chuck Grassley?

  126. 126.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Davis X. Machina: Heh. It took me some time to come around to this position and I’m still wary. But we have to work on both the supply side and the usage side. Behavior won’t change with artificially low pricing in the southwest.

  128. 128.

    ranchandsyrup

    @Trollhattan: There is an impact for you in that SD firmed up their source from CO River so we won’t come looking for more water from y’all. We get about 30% from the delta right now and 50% from CO river.

  129. 129.

    LAC

    World: OMG, Grassley! Like, send like, a text, to, like, Amanda in math. She’ll know what is going on. OMG, I would die!

  130. 130.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    From someone both aged and cynical, this thread is chock full of win. I doff my hat to y’all.

  131. 131.

    JPL

    @Keith G: @Amir Khalid:
    Michelle Obama is not an elected official. I have no problem questioning the actions of elected officials and expressing opinions but the only reason you heckle is to get on the news.

  132. 132.

    Keith G

    @JPL: She chose to speak a a political event, an event raising money so that a political organization might be more successful in its quest to be a more powerful force in this country’s government.

    Sounds like an excellent place to protest.

    If that were First Lady Ann Romney speaking at a GOP fundraiser (and someone bought me a ticket) I would be so there asking her why she was happy with her hubby’s war on Planned Parenthood.

  133. 133.

    Trollhattan

    @JPL:

    This. Speaking truth to power doesn’t de facto extend to speaking truth to somebody frequently adjacent to power. And frankly, FLOTUS has been scrupulous about staying clear of policy and governance, knowing the shitstorm it would create. (Recalling the heartfelt Republican welcome for FLOTUS Hillary.)

  136. 136.

    JCJ

    @Original Lee:

    OMG! That album came out around the time I went to school in Hamburg. The Spider Murphy Gang played a concert in the Stadtpark that I went to see. The big hit was “Skandal im Sperrbezirk.”

  137. 137.

    Todd

    @Keith G:

    She chose to speak a a political event, an event raising money so that a political organization might be more successful in its quest to be a more powerful force in this country’s government.

    Cry havoc, and let slip the firebaggers of tears. Free Mumia, man. Toss some glitter, fire up the incense, and populate the drum circle.

    LOL

    Once more, I’m greatly saddened that there wasn’t a burly cop with a 10 D cell maglite present, and that said nonexistent maglite was not used to split the heckler’s skull open like an overripe cantaloupe.

  138. 138.

    Keith G

    @Trollhattan: I imagine that Ellen Sturtz not trying to speak truth to power as much as she was trying to raise awareness of an important civil rights issue. ‘Mission accomplished’ in that all the reports I read today mentioned her stated concerns.

    Michelle is in good company, though…..

    Grieving Mom Heckles Laura Bush

  140. 140.

    Todd

    @eemom:

    What do you think Michelle Obama should have said/done?

    Whimperingly accept the scolding of one of her lily white emoprogs betters, of course. Followed by begging her husband to abdicate his powers to a hackeysack soaked in patchouli.

  141. 141.

    Todd

    @Keith G:

    ‘Mission accomplished’ in that all the reports I read today mentioned her stated concerns.

    Actually, “don’t give a shit” gives way to “mild antipathy” every time one of these fucking hecklers opine.

    When President Santorum starts rounding up folks for ex-gaying camps, I’m just gonna laugh.

  142. 142.

    Keith G

    @Todd: So if this were a person of color concerned about racism in our federal penal system heckling a GOP fundraiser (again, let’s say Ann Romney), you would support a burly cop with a 10 D cell maglite used to split the heckler’s skull open like an overripe cantaloupe.?

    Good. To. Know.

  145. 145.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Keith G: Has any disinterested observer ever come away from an encounter with a heckler thinking that the heckler had a good point and should be heard more? The point is to disrupt and be unpleasant to make a point. OK, then. Is the point ever made? Seems like it’s doomed to be even less popular than a march or a strike, which don’t usually go over that well themselves in this country, but at least have the advantage of showing mass support. One person yelling seems like a very bad way to garner positive attention for anything.

  146. 146.

    Shortstop

    I have no problem with someone paying to get into a political fundraiser and then trying,
    however ineptly, to heckle the speaker, however much the speaker is actually peripheral to the object of policy change. If Sturtz thinks this is an effective way to make her point, she can knock herself out.

    The problem is with her simultaneously naive, arrogant and self-deluded belief that once she heckled, the hecklee and audience didn’t have a perfect right to tell her to pipe the fuck down. In the fantasies of so many hecklers, their audiences, once struck by the force of the finally unvarnished, blinding truth, will either 1) fall back amazed and gratified at having been shown the way or 2) will curl up furious and speechless at having been so expertly dissed in a few words. The hecklers never fail to be stunned when neither happens.

  147. 147.

    Keith G

    @eemom: I am less concerned about her than I am about people who seem to want to have protest stifled as long as they like the object of the protest. Stop being precious. We liked playing tough when the other guys were in power.

    I wasn’t really fond of her threatening to take her speech and go home, but she gets to make her own choices. I do wonder about her staff work. I hope someone like her “playing politics” at this level (the highest we have), has been given pointers and practice about handling hecklers. Her husband had the right idea – a method any political speaker should consider.

    To be clear, if she was addressing a group of school kids (non politicians) about her diet and exercise initiative (non political), a heckler would have been totally unacceptable.

  148. 148.

    MattR

    @Shortstop: This is pretty much how I feel. If she wants to interrupt and heckle to try and make her point, that is her perogative. But don’t assume that you will be “treated like liberators”, to borrow a phrase from the previous administration. The people in attendence may support your goals but that does not mean that they will also support your disruption of an event that they paid to attend.

  149. 149.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    I wasn’t really fond of her threatening to take her speech and go home, but she gets to make her own choices.

    So the heckler has freedom of speech, but Michelle Obama doesn’t?

    As I said above, that’s always what gets me about free speech advocates — they don’t seem to realize that, yes, they have a right to say their piece, but then their opponent has an equal right to respond. I don’t see what the problem was with Mrs. Obama saying that if Ms. Kurtz wanted the microphone that badly, she would leave and let Ms. Kurtz have it.

    You’re not being “silenced” if you say your piece and the other person responds to it.

  150. 150.

    Keith G

    @FlipYrWhig: Sometimes getting a headline is an accomplishment. though, it it rarely is enough. What matters now is what comes next. I recall how pissed off many New Yorkers were during the early days of ACT UP. Those folks did not play nice. And yes, eventually more conventional discourse was required.

    A woman, who is married to the world’s most famous community activist/organizer, just got a big hello from another activist. It’s a funny world.

  151. 151.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne:
    Bullshit

    I will not play along as you play your fucking deranged game of putting words on the keyboards of others. You try this every day, you get called out, and yet here you come at it again.

  153. 153.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    I think I asked this question before, but the thread had died before you were able to answer:

    IIRC (and I plead to having been in junior high and only getting my information through the national media), most of ACT-UP’s actions were against people they felt were blocking treatment for AIDS patients, like staging protests during Masses that were presided over by the obstructionist Catholic cardinal in New York. Was there also a lot of internecine protesting between different factions that supported the same general actions that didn’t get as much publicity?

  154. 154.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    I will not play along as you play your fucking deranged game of putting words on the keyboards of others. You try this every day, you get called out, and yet here you come at it again.

    Then what did you mean when you said Mrs. Obama “gets to make her own choices”? It sounded like you were criticizing Mrs. Obama’s actions. Was that not what you meant?

  156. 156.

    WereBear

    I was somewhat more tolerant of Bush being heckled, since he pointedly shut down protest anywhere near him. Anyone who got through regardless deserves at least a “well played, sir or madam!”

    But on the whole, it’s rude and wrong and thoughtless and pointless. I’m always up for defending liberal ideas, but I’m not going to get into a shouting match with someone when I’m invited for dinner.

    Heckling is the cheapest form of narcissism.

  157. 157.

    TR

    @Mnemosyne:

    You’re not being “silenced” if you say your piece and the other person responds to it.

    You’re especially not being silenced if you rudely interrupt the person everyone else was there to hear and then she offers you the fucking microphone.

    This woman is no different from Joe Wilson. No, she’s worse. At least Wilson didn’t act like the victim.

  158. 158.

    eemom

    @Keith G:

    I think you have the better of the argument as to points (1) it was a political event, and (2) most people here would be falling all over themselves to cheer for your hypothetical Ann Romney heckler.

    For myself, I certainly don’t see the heckler as a victim and I don’t think heckling is a good tactic to call attention to an issue when the issue has nothing to do with the event. As for MO’s reaction, I have a sort of instinctive appreciation for anyone who tells someone acting like an asshole to STFU…..OTOH, MO does enjoy a certain “she can do no wrong” idolatry, in general, that I don’t subscribe to.

  159. 159.

    eemom

    @Mnemosyne:

    You’re not being “silenced” if you say your piece and the other person responds to it.

    Handing her the microphone and saying “it’s me or her” is not a response. As I said above, I’m fine with it as a reaction — but a “response”, it is not.

  161. 161.

    Eric U.

    I don’t see anything wrong with the heckler, but the implication that something wrong was done in response is ridiculous. You heckle, you get shown out of the room. If Michelle Obama wants to make that person look bad for being rude, I see nothing wrong with that either. It’s not like there are going to be any sort of lasting repercussions for her actions. Just because she’s making herself look like a deluded buffoon doesn’t reflect on the administration at all.

  162. 162.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, the Hochdeutsche Grammatikpolizisten have spoken.

    The obvious out is to just BS your way through and say it’s idiomatic dialect…blame Schwäbisch, that’s always a likely sell.

  163. 163.

    Keith G

    @TR: $500 fundraising political events are great ways to keep noise from troubling the powerful. I am glad that it doesn’t always work.

    @Mnemosyne: I will try this once

    Me:
    “I wasn’t really fond of her threatening to take her speech and go home, but she gets to make her own choices”.

    You:
    “So the heckler has freedom of speech, but Michelle Obama doesn’t?”

    Let me try:
    To my simple mind, the style to not be fond is a way to say, “To me it could have been done in a better way”. But notice that I did not say MO had no right to respond and regain the focus of her comments.

    Her speech, she gets to make that call. I get to wonder if it could have been handled differently.

    So for you to slyly present that I was implying that ‘ the heckler has freedom of speech but Michelle Obama doesn’t’ is a construct so wild that it’s origins confuse me.

    But yes folks it was a stunt. Just like when the grieving mother of a KIA soldier interrupted Laura Bush, it was a stunt.

    In this context, stunts are rude. It’s why they are called a stunt and why it is used as an attention getting activity by those who can’t get their calls put through to the powerful. And it is very American.

  164. 164.

    Mnemosyne

    @eemom:

    Handing her the microphone and saying “it’s me or her” is not a response. As I said above, I’m fine with it as a reaction — but a “response”, it is not.

    Meh, fair enough, I guess. I guess I’m still gobsmacked from the sense of entitlement that made Ms. Kurtz whine later about how it was so unfair that she was asked to be quiet and how shocked she was that the other guests seemed to agree with Mrs. Obama and not with her. I still think she had a whole “speaking truth to power” fantasy in her head of turning the crowd against Mrs. Obama that just didn’t play out the way she wanted.

  165. 165.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    To my simple mind, the style to not be fond is a way to say, “To me it could have been done in a better way”. But notice that I did not say MO had no right to respond and regain the focus of her comments.

    Okay, fair enough. Thank you for clarifying.

    I am genuinely curious about the ACT-UP question, because I was too young to really get most of the details at the time. I think there was some discussion of different factions starting to fight each other as time went on in And the Band Played On, but I’d be interested to hear from someone who was actually there.

  166. 166.

    Keith G

    @eemom:

    For myself, I certainly don’t see the heckler as a victim

    And while I am sure that you noticed it, let me point out for others that in my first comment, I noted that I felt that the notion of a victim was not warranted.

  167. 167.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne: To keep it short. The original ACT UP crowd were in a sense revolutionaries, but revolutionaries are only good at doing a limited and specific list of things.

    At some point there is a need and (thanks to the revolutionaries) a space for dialogue and bridge-building – to paraphrase Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything” and sometimes the necessary noise makers cannot integrate into the efforts of cooperation and governance.

    Edited

  169. 169.

    shortstop

    @Keith G: But Sturtz apparently does see herself that way, based on her comments after the fact. Many of us are addressing that, not simply responding to you.

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