Physical Violence Towards Reporters at McCain/Palin Rally

[Joanne98]

Oh what? Between all the Obama name-calling, drunk, angry rednecks, and anti-media rhetoric spotted throughout these modern KKK meet-ups that are the John McCain/Sarah Palin rallies, did you think it wasn't going to escalate to physical violence?

Because while John and Sarah never specifically tell their constituents to kill the naysayers (they leave that up to the audience) they don't exactly discourage it either.

And now a reporter has gotten hurt, after a "large, bearded man" at the rally in Wilmington decided he didn't like the way Joe Killian from Greensboro News & Record was smirking at the conflict, kicked him in the legs and knocked him down.

Take that, first amendment!


I sidled up to one of the Obama supporters and asked why they were there, what they were trying to accomplish.

As he was telling me a large, bearded man in full McCain-Palin campaign regalia got in his face to yell at him.

“Hey, hey,” I said. “I’m trying to interview him. Just a minute, okay?”

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of “U.S.A” by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

“Oh, you think that’s funny?!” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that’s real funny…” he said.

And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

From my position there I saw the bottoms of a number of feet almost accidentally stomping me to death as the two political camps screamed back and forth, the music continued to blare and some of the Obama crowd moved the large bearded man and his friends away. When I was helped to my feet the bearded man was walking away quickly.

http://www.jossip.com/physical-violence-towards-reporters-at-mccainpalin-rally-20081017/

[tularetom]

1. On behalf of large bearded men let me say most of us are not assholes

but had I been there I might have done something I haven't done since I was maybe 21 - punched another person in the mouth.