Franken as "Enforcer? Dems are screwed!

January 27, 2004 1:58 PM

AL FRANKEN KNOCKS DOWN DEAN HECKLERDefending free speech by tackling a heckler? "I got down low and took his legs out," said Franken afterwards. "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." Wacky. [via the delightful and always dependable NY Post!]
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly (45 comments total)

Josh Marshall was at the event, and his recollection is somewhat different than the NY Post's.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 2:03 PM on January 27, 2004

Wait the new york post may be exaggerating? Not telling the whole truth? Lying?

Shocked, I am! Shocked I tell you!
posted by lumpenprole at 2:09 PM on January 27, 2004

Yeah, it's wacky if you read the Post.

How about this account from the National Review?
(scroll down a bit)
" In any case, Dean remained refreshingly composed as two clowns tried to turn a successful campaign stop into a one-ring circus."

Or the CNN version:
"LaRouche supporters disrupt Democrats"
posted by 2sheets at 2:23 PM on January 27, 2004

"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."

But if they do speak and you happen to disagree then it's ok to intervene physically? Wow.

And lumpenprole, Josh Marshall (no less-biased a source than the Post) seems to agree with what NY Post reported, even linking to it:

"Al Franken helped take out a LaRouche protestor and, in the doing, got his glasses broken."
posted by dhoyt at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2004

I think Al is starting to lose his mind.
posted by Witty at 2:26 PM on January 27, 2004

Who knew Al Franken was so tough? I'd pay good money to see him deck Mary Cheney. ; >

And there are still LaRouche people around? Is he on the ballot there? anywhere?
posted by amberglow at 2:26 PM on January 27, 2004

Hecklers and the tackling tacklers who tackle them.
posted by brownpau at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2004

But if they do speak and you happen to disagree then it's ok to intervene physically? Wow.

Yeah, I mean, really, they ought to have had the SS forcibly remove the guy to a free speech zone. Or just arrest him. What do you mean, that perk's just for the president?
posted by bashos_frog at 2:37 PM on January 27, 2004

This is not worth a post to the front page.
posted by chaz at 2:38 PM on January 27, 2004

Weird Democrat on Democrat violence. I would love to see the video on this one.
posted by thirteen at 2:39 PM on January 27, 2004

"Shut up shut up shut up"
- Bill O'reilly to Al Franken
posted by arto at 2:44 PM on January 27, 2004

Wasn't it Al Franken calling Bill O'Reilly the bully? Perhaps someone should tell Franken, "It's not your book tour, Al." Let Dean take the protestor on.
posted by ed at 2:46 PM on January 27, 2004

dhoyt: It wasn't a public space. Surely you would approve of self-help? Or do you believe trespassers just get to hang out, screaming, in a private forum?

amberglow: I believe he, like Paul Wellstone, was a wrestler. Don't mess around with those little liberal Minnesotans
posted by subgenius at 2:51 PM on January 27, 2004

ed, not a protestor, a heckler, a shouter-downer, an asshole.

Good on Franklin. This may just be the Montana talking, but I wish more people could stand up for what they believe, even if that does involve a half suplex and take down.

(Bullshit lawsuit in 5,4,3 ...)
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:55 PM on January 27, 2004

"And you'll get your ass kicked by me, Al Franken."

They make it sound like Al jumped the guy, when in fact he decided to help security get rid of this guy, who had re-entered AFTER he'd been escorted out once already.

But if they do speak and you happen to disagree then it's ok to intervene physically? Wow.

Feh. Not even a good strawman. There's a difference between speaking and screaming obscenities to drown out another speaker. This guy was offered a microphone and a chance to speak freely, to express his opinion. He instead chose to scream crap at the stage. He was escorted out the first time, only to come back and scream crap at the stage again.

I'll be stunned the first time Bush hands a mic to a protestor to ask his/her opinion, instead of having them cordoned off half a mile away and smacked down & arrested by the Secret Service if they leave the area.
posted by FormlessOne at 2:57 PM on January 27, 2004

Typical. Franken, like most liberals, fanatically opposes a return to the gold standard.
posted by crunchburger at 2:57 PM on January 27, 2004

"I'll be stunned the first time Bush hands a mic to a protestor to ask his/her opinion"

I'm no fan of his dad, but the elder Bush handled hecklers and protesters well. There was a good segment on "This American Life" a couple of weeks ago with a guy who is still trying to live down the day he tried to disrupt George 1, and instead of being escorted out, Bush took a question from him and completely out-classed him.
posted by 2sheets at 3:09 PM on January 27, 2004

Thought Al is a "talker", not a "tackler".
posted by thomcatspike at 3:15 PM on January 27, 2004

This is a bs FPP, its sensationalistic and inaccurate and pretty troll worthy.

Heckling isn't free speech, its the attempt to subvert free speech. It was a private function where the idiot had already been kicked out once.

It is possible to take a heckler and use him to your advantage but not all hecklers are willing to settle down and be heard from properly.

And George 1 (which makes the present George number 2?) was a far smarter man than his son. Shrub ran a baseball team, senior ran the CIA, you do the math.
posted by fenriq at 3:32 PM on January 27, 2004

That should sell 1.27 books for ol' frogface :p
posted by Trik at 3:40 PM on January 27, 2004

Shrub ran a baseball team, senior ran the CIA, you do the math.

I get 13.2
posted by yerfatma at 3:57 PM on January 27, 2004

Actually, naysayers, I thought this was a cool little post. Admittedly, the FPP itself is kind of lame, but I appreciate the different takes on how this story got reported. 'Cause believe me, folks, this thing is going to get hounded upon by the Right's talking heads.

Semper MeFi.
posted by mkultra at 3:59 PM on January 27, 2004

FrankenFilter.
posted by wendell at 4:18 PM on January 27, 2004

OK, I've lived in the US for a few years now, but I've never been able to quite get this: what the heck is a LaRouche supporter? Who's LaRouche? There's some history here I'm missing....
posted by aramaic at 4:22 PM on January 27, 2004

we all are, aramaic--most I can make out, he's a crank who always runs for president, and wants to be included in all debates and on tv, but isn't a dem or republican I think. Anyone else know?
posted by amberglow at 4:28 PM on January 27, 2004

He's supposedly a dem, but then again, so is Joe Lieberman, so that means little.
posted by Elim at 4:37 PM on January 27, 2004

LaRouche on wikipedia. more than you could possibly want to know.

i've always understood him to be a right-wing populist (read: fascist), though his literature is often quite confusing.

from Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
posted by mrgrimm at 4:41 PM on January 27, 2004

ah, thanks mrgrimm--and he's on the ballot in nh (the site calls him a "democratic pre-candidate")
posted by amberglow at 5:10 PM on January 27, 2004

If you be my bodyguard,
I can be your long lost pal,
You can call me Deanie,
And baby when I call you I can call you Al.


sorry.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:15 PM on January 27, 2004

LaRouche is a complete wacko nut.....might that explain why one of his supporters was at a Howard Dean rally?
posted by Durwood at 5:27 PM on January 27, 2004

Actually, that would explain why he supports Kerry...
posted by Ptrin at 6:09 PM on January 27, 2004

Obviously, Franken is still pissed that Rich Lowry refuses to fight him, so he took his rage out on this poor, unsuspecting LaRouche-ite asshole.
posted by Ty Webb at 6:31 PM on January 27, 2004

Regarding LaRouche:

His opponents on the political conservative right have characterized him as a fascist and a communist, his opponents on the political liberal and socialist/communist left have characterized him as a fascist, Bonapartist, and a right populist.

In other words, no one wants anything to do with him.

In December of 1988, LaRouche was convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud in regards to the methods used by his organization to solicit approximately $34 million in loans. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in Minnesota, though he was given a early release in 1993 after serving five years. Prominent radical political figure and former statesman, Ramsey Clark, has helped to try to clear LaRouche's name, arguing that investigators and political opponents had gone overboard in their accusations.

posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 6:44 PM on January 27, 2004

LaRouche considers himself a FDR New Deal Democrat according to the newspapers that get handed to me on the street by his supporters. There are usually pictures of FDR all over his propaganda, so I get great pleasure out of throwing them into the recycling bin.
posted by thirteen at 6:50 PM on January 27, 2004

According to the Saturday Night Live Recurring Characters FAQ, Al Franken played Lyndon LaRouche on SNL.
posted by MegoSteve at 6:58 PM on January 27, 2004

Reposted from National Review Online's take on the incident (readers' e-mail posted to their blog The Corner by long-time Franken nemesis Rich Lowry), because it made me laugh:

1. Was this not a preemptive strike?

2. Isn’t it true, that the heckler did not pose an imminent threat to Dr. Dean?

3. The heckler was taunting, using language as a weapon, with no WMD evident.

4. Franken should have consulted the ACLU, Al Sharpton, Peter Jennings, and developed a multilateral consensus before attacking!

5. Isn’t this shocking, Franken behavior reminiscent of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, and Gore Vidal?

6. Why couldn’t Franken give diplomacy a chance? Franken did not exhaust all avenues of diplomacy before his unilateral militaristic attack!

7. On what evidence, did Franken declare this heckler an illegal combatant?

8. This is not the first unlawful attack by Franken and friends. It follows unprovoked attacks on Kosovo, Somalia, Rick Lowry, and others.
posted by Asparagirl at 7:05 PM on January 27, 2004

Dude, I'm going to take down the next LaRouche freak who starts screaming near my head, and I'm pretty small. Those people really threatening and in my relatively extensive experience, if you don't immediately agree with them, they just start shrieking and calling names.

LaRouche quotes, for context, from here and here:

"America must be cleansed for its righteous war by the immediate elimination of the Nazi Jewish Lobby and other British agents from the councils of government, industry, and labor."

"Who is pushing the world toward war? is the forces behind the World Wildlife Fund, the Club of Rome, and the heritage of H.G. Wells and the evil Bertrand Russell."

"The first United States-grown rock group of that type, the Grateful Dead, was generated as a British intelligence operation by the Occult Bureau of Huxley and Bateson out of the Palo Alto Veteran's Hospital where they were doing LSD and related experiments."

No one wants anything to do with him because he's a crazy person.
posted by blissbat at 7:43 PM on January 27, 2004

he was protecting his sandwich
posted by poopy at 7:45 PM on January 27, 2004

it must have been some sandwich, poopy : >
posted by amberglow at 7:50 PM on January 27, 2004

because it made me laugh:

Says it all, dear. And from what I've read, no attack on Rich Lowry can be construed as unprovoked.

How about a little experiment? Let's have someone try the same heckling next time George Bush does a public meeting (oops, sorry, I forgot, he only does campaign fundraisers and highly-vetted photo-ops) and see what happens? The Jerry Springer show comes to mind.
posted by riviera at 8:18 PM on January 27, 2004

Well here's a another tale of a pugilistic pundit today, none other than "Traitor Bob" Novak. The source is weak as they come, but what the hell?

"Apparently, someone from the crowd got on Novak's case, calling him a traitor a few times. Novak went ballistic - Sym decribed it as a 'Lee Harvey Oswald moment' - and went over and shoved the guy, sending him sprawling."
posted by 2sheets at 8:55 PM on January 27, 2004

LaRouche was on the DC ballot. He did a lot of campaigning here, at least in the immediate proximity of my office. Very entertaining.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:30 AM on January 28, 2004

Al really should have let security handle this one. Or just done some counterheckling. But I must admit I'm impressed in spite of myself that he kicked the guy's ass instead of vice versa as I would have expected.
posted by orange swan at 7:17 AM on January 28, 2004

2sheets: Yep, I liked that. Dean tried to do that here, too. It just didn't work out as well.
posted by FormlessOne at 7:18 AM on January 28, 2004

There was no wrestling move to speak of. The guy got his glasses knocked off/kinda shoved over. *Security* took Andrew (the kid who was protesting) down. There was no Al Franken ass-kicking or vice versa.

Spin Gone Wild.

Yes, I know a bunch of LaRouchies personally, and they tend to video tape everything. If you're a LaRouchie, that's pretty much all the protection you have.
posted by precocious at 1:56 PM on January 29, 2004