Republican Congressman assaults student caught on video: mainstream media goes nuts

The link wouldn't work for me, so I had to look it up on Youtube.

Whew!!! I saw something COMPLETELY different than you guys.

I saw two young men who wanted to be filmed in an altercation with this guy and whose intent was to publish it on the internet.

Was the Congressman in the wrong to knock the camera out of the "student's" hand and to grab his wrist in a threatening manner? Well, of course he was. :BangHead: He was completely acting out of line for a Congressman. Shame on him!!!!!

But I have two red flags that caught my cynical eye.

(1) Why wouldn't the young man answer his question? Why couldn't he just say, "Sir, my name is Sam and I go to school in Iowa." He didn't have to give his last name or the name of his school. But it appeared to me that he was intentionally dragging the conversation on by NOT answering the question.

(2) Why didn't his friend behind him PUT THE CAMERA DOWN AND HELP HIS FRIEND? He seemed very intent on capturing all of this on film. I would have put the camera down and put a karate chop on that Congressman's arm to make him let go of my comrade.

I'm a very cynical person who sees the glass half-empty and tends not to believe everything I see.

Maybe it's a character flaw, but just can't get up in arms and I didn't see what you-all saw.

 

Well, they got in his personal space for one thing. The camera was awfully close to his face. Even if the Congressman was the one who got up in the camera, they should have known this was going to be ugly and backed off.

Anyway, asking a Democrat "Do you support the Obama agenda" is full of implications and only ticks Democrats off. What on EARTH did they THINK he was going to say or do? Ignore them?

Hmmmm.....well, that wasn't going to make for an interesting project that they claimed they were working on.

I'm not saying that they couldn't or shouldn't have interviewed him. I think it's good that young people do this type of thing. But there is a whole better way to go about doing something like this.

Example. "Hello, Mr. Congressman. My name is Sam from Iowa State. I'm completing a project for my political science class - may I ask you some questions."......

......."How do you, as a Democrat, feel that our President is doing with the BP oil tragedy on the coast?"

Do you see the difference? I do.

I just think that they were looking for their 15 minutes.

Let's answer my question first. Why WOULDN'T he state his first name only and perhaps the beserk Congressman would have taken his hands off of him. The more he did not answer the question, the more crazy the Congressman got. And that appeared to me to be his purpose.

This didn't appear to be an issue of First Amendment Rights.

So you are saying that the other young man didn't help his friend because he didn't want to get in trouble? And that filming the Congressman was a better course of action? Perhaps.

All I know is that filming the idiot would be the LAST thing on my mind. Getting his hands off of my friend would have been the first. But that's just me.

And especially when the Congressman wrapped his arm around the boy giving the appearance that he was going to take him down and wrestle him - that's when I REALLY would have put the camera down.

But his friend didn't. He just stood there politely and kept saying, "Sir! Sir!"

Not sure what those political views are.

I am a die-hard Republican, conservative with my politics, money, and religion.

I definitely see a problem with the Congressman's behavior. I said in my first post that he was 100% out of line. And he will and SHOULD suffer consequences for this.

I just also see the "asking of the question" as a provocation. I think that might have known that this guy was a whack job and got in his personal space and brought up Obama's "agenda".

 

John Deere Fan,

We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this. We are two people who saw the same thing and saw parts of it differently.

And I'm not going to take the bait about that rape comment.

What I agree with you is that the Congressman is a nutcase. Clear and simple.

What I disagree with you about is that I think those two students were looking for their 15 minutes. Did they know exactly what they were going to get? No. But they sought it nonetheless.

That's how I saw it.

You saw it completely differently. And that's OK.

 

Exactly. He should have just kept on walking or gave a polite non-commital answer.

Instead, he acts like a juvenile whose frontal lobe is not fully developed.