Man heckles Obama about Pledge of Allegiance

Source: Breitbart.com/AP

BEREA, Ohio (AP) - A man who wore press credentials and took photographs from a platform interrupted Barack Obama's town-hall meeting Tuesday by shouting complaints that the Democratic presidential candidate had not called for the audience to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Obama invited the heckler to lead the audience in the pledge, and he did.

Attendees at the gathering in the gymnasium at Baldwin Wallace College in this Cleveland suburb rose to their feet and recited the pledge. "Thank you, sir, appreciate it," Obama told the man.

The man, who carried a large, professional-style telephoto lens, was among photographers and videographers on the main press platform at one end of the gym. He wore what appeared to be the regular daily news media credential the campaign issues local news media members who cover the Illinois senator at a single events.

Campaign officials said they did not know who the man was, and no effort was made to remove him. He continued taking photographs throughout Obama's appearance.


Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92CBG885&show_article=1

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A protester even disguised as a newsperson would've never gotten in to a Bush or McCain rally. Good for Obama campaign for letting him stay and the cool way Obama handled it. Guess Obama now has to lead every rally with the Pledge. Geeesh!

no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.
no effort was made to remove him.

Do you get it, you fascist republican pigs?

Do you get the difference?

Just curious.

Parlock?

:D

:thumbsup:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEi76Hv8oe7-Kx2x4ZY0MLMm2viQD92CBG885

Sorry, couldn't get photo to post.

I pledge my Allegiance to the words,
of the constitution of the United States.
And to the principles for which it stands,
freedom of speech and of dissent,
quite amendable,
with liberty and justice for those who read it!


I don't pledge my allegiance to any flag. It's pretty, but it is just a symbol. It can have any meaning superimposed upon it. Sure you can wordsmith the constitution, but it's hard to completely redefine it.

Inserted in the 50s thanks to McCarthyites and KKKlan fans, at that!

Why not tell the truth and call the guy a brain-dead idiot and slap him in the face? He CLEARLY deserved that.
-or-
Why not have Obama say the pledge each time he enters a new building? Make sure he's got on flag pins too!

What a nation of fools we live in.

:eyes:

NGU.

IT would play huge.

But this brain-dead patriotism-as-mental-disease stuff like The Pledge of Allegiance is lame as hell.

Can anyone now demand the pledge be said at any Obama event??????

The guy was a plant and behaved like a typical Repub ass. But Obama handled it with grace and made him leave empty-handed. Best result possible.

They ought to get that on the Nightly News.

Everytime someone brings up the BS Pledge charge they can just remind people of this moment

He was a Republican and working for the Jack Ryan campaign.

It's probably not the same guy, but no doubt a similar tactic by the McCain campaign or some other right-wing group.

But does McCain say The Pledge at HIS Town Hall meetings?

He was a prisoner of war, so he DOESN'T have to say it! How DARE you question his patriotism and loyalty! :sarcasm:

did he SHOUT "UNDER GOD!!!", or did he just say the two words?

He was looking for the "Don't tase me bro!" moment ... no doubt ...

A slightly odd moment at the beginning of Barack Obama's event in Berea, OH, when a man on the press riser -- apparently a photographer -- began loudly demanding that the crowd recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

The crowd began to chant, drowning the man out, but Obama -- perhaps sensing a moment of peril -- quickly shushed them, and led the crowd in the Pledge.

"We usually do an invocation and a pledge before we start," he said. "I don’t know why we didn’t, but this young man reminded us."

A spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said Obama was referring to invocations that take place as the events open, and before Obama arrives.

The Pledge aficionado refused to give his name to reporters, but did take the time to accuse a member of the local press of lacking patriotism.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0808/The_pledge_in_Berea.html?showall

It does make me nervous that a goofball like this got a press pass to an Obama event. How well is the Secret Service doing their job????????

that he gave Barack a boost with his antics. It gave people another chance to see how Barack handles dissenters and opposition. That's a GOOD THING! It also shows that he & his campaign are not the paranoid idiots like Shrub & McNuts who won't even let people INTO their speeches who they think might create a disturbance. Ironically, there was an article TODAY about a black reporter who was tossed out of the McNut town Hall. He really WAS a reporter but the goons on duty had him removed...saying he was in the wrong place...yet none of the other reporters who were in the same area were removed!

edit to include a link

A reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat suspects he was removed from a John McCain event last week in Panama City, Florida because he is black. A statement from a McCain campaign "advance man" claimed that race was not involved.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/344



All those things that you might consider trivial (and they are) will change some voter's minds. People who weren't sure about him just might be convinced that he DOES do a good job handling confrontation!

And commented that a friend said he was "guilty of reporting while Black."

I wish that had gotten more coverage.

It was a Freeper Congress that stuck the GAWD clause on what had been a secular and unifying Pledge of Allegiance.

Remember that lame song he recorded near the end of his career? "In the years since I was a boy they added two words. 'Under God.' Wouldn't it be a shame if someone said 'That's a prayer' and they took that out too?"

That song is still beloved by the right wing, for whom Red Skelton was the last white comedian they could truly trust.

We shouldn't believe in ancient superstitions.

And never once did the audience say the pledge of allegiance.

that was the absolute right response - a true uniter not divider!

NT!

Then God Bless America.

Then a prayer.

Then a church service.

Then an altar call.

Then Jesus will come back and smite all their sanctimonious asses.

dealing with ego centric students. :)

Obama had awesome response

Saying pledge or no, does not make you patriot.........

:hi:

:)

That idiot ended up looking like the dipshit that he is.

where I bet the "protester" wished he had kept his mouth shut..he handed Barack a huge PR victory...

True patriotism is actively doing something that improves your nation. It's volunteering, donating, organizing, etc. It's not blindly reciting words.

However, we currently live in a time wherein our media panders to this ignorance and calls it "campaign issue".

The end result is that America continues to decline because Americans foolishly believe that reciting a pledge or wearing a flag pin is tantamount to being patriotic when it can't be any further from the truth.

When nations cling to myths over reality, they're not progressing, and when you don't progress, you lag behind and become obsolete.

Not that he asked about the pledge of allegiance. Not how Obama handled it. That know one knew who this fellow was or if truly working for the news then which one? If security is good then where did this guy come from? If this one slipped in then who will be next?

Raebrek!!!

he had to have 'borrowed' it from someone...

i also like that he was too brave to give his name, too....

even with those factors in his favor, and no efforts being made to remove him, he STILL completely botched his effort to make obama look bad...

As we all know, it's cumbersome to lead every event with the pledge. And if Obama had said no, it's not the practice to do that, or no, it's too much bother, or anything like that, Obama would have been toast, pilloried like Hillary, for ever more in the MSM.

Personally, I think this was a Rove plot. Now we have to turn it against them. Someone, code pink?, should be at all his town hall meetings and press conferences and also demand that McCain lead every town hall meeting and every press conference with the pledge of allegiance.

And when/if he doesn't he should be attacked vehemently for not being in love with America.

Fox News' latest martyr, and getting to do the whole Fixed Noise chat show circuit where he could get interviewed by his idols O'Reilly, Hannity and the whole Fox & Fiends morning zoo crew!

Obama defused that bomb with the manual skills of a microsurgeon!!

President Clinton was good about that, also. Repubs just get the heckler thrown out, maybe roughed up in the process.