I visited this little girl when she was a newborn in the hospital.
Who would tear up a 3 year old’s sign? Sheesh.
How many three year old activists are there? Don’t people usually become tighty righties later in life? I’d have thought she’s start off as a Nader supporter.
And what kind of father brings a toddler into a situation like that no matter what her political inclinations are?
A better question, because it’s not really any of your business why he brought his daughter:
Who thinks that it’s cool to grab personal property and destroy it, especially when it’s non-offensive? Whether you agree with the opinions espoused by that sign or not, you must agree that scaring the bejeebers out of a little girl over something as simple as a campaign sign is pretty friggin’ stupid.
Those Kerry suporters did Kerry a monumental disservice.
DemocraticUnderground.com has some discussion of whether this might have been a setup by the Parlocks - part of it (though not all) revolves around the issue of whether the young man in the left of the picture, wearing a “IUPAT for Kerry/Edwards” shirt and holding what seems to be a piece of the ripped sign, is in fact Phil Jr. Abbie, if you know the family, can you confirm or deny this? DemocraticUnderground has some pictures, and it does kinda look like him, but they’re rather blurry.
Given the fact that the father has a history of going into opposition meetings and counter-protesting, and of having his signs taken away by the people at the events, I’d say he should have damn well expected something like this to happen - and he’s therefore PRIMARILY at fault for the fact that his daughter was traumatized.
Frankly, I don’t think little kids should be holding political signs anyway. Whenever I see that (on either side of the political fence), I just cringe.
It’s not him. The guy on the left was some union dork. Phil Jr., IIRC, is serving in the National Guard (I think).
The blonde kid on the right, however, is his son.
(I’ve met Phil, but I’m more well acquainted with his wife.)
As far as the “what kind of a father” comments, I’m not even going to bother.
[QUOTE=The blonde kid on the right, however, is his son.[/QUOTE]
Look at the fist that kid is making. By yipping up the sign I think some stoopid people made a couple of life long republicans. As a liberal, I find it embarrasing and outrageous.
Thanks for your somewhat more informed input, I appreciate it. (Just so you know, the idea Union Shirt Guy could be Phil Jr. was in part based upon reports that Phil Jr. HAD been there, so either those are inaccurate or his National Guard service didn’t preclude him from attending.)
I did some looking and found Junior has done some acting.
From Phil’s mouth… Yes, it’s biased Republican radio, but the 2nd interview is pretty interesting.
The two oldest Parlock kids are posting on Free Republic. At least, they claim to be the two oldest kids, and I think a long-time member is vouching for them.
Spiderman9 claims to be Philip II, and says that he was indeed present at the airport, but not at the actual incident.
This article states that:
[quote]
On Thursday, the Huntington real estate agent said, he hid nine Bush-Cheney signs under his pant leg and took 3-year-old daughter Sophia and 11-year-old son Alex to a rally for Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. An older son manned the van outside the rally with a larger Bush sign.
Another debate flying around here is was this thing an actual rally?
Edwards got out of the plane and waved at the crowd. No speech. Yes, security was there, but he probably has security escort him to the bathroom these days. When I think “rally” I think of the candidate making a speech and getting the party faithful fired up, etc. If simply showing up somewhere is a “rally” then I guess both candidates are having rallies pretty much every couple of hours.
My thoughts on the whole mess:
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West Virginia party line Democrats are INSANE. They are almost as crazy as the coal union nutsos. Thus, I’m not surprised this happened, especially in this year’s election. (Someone fired a shot into the local Republican HQ the night of Bush’s acceptance speech and then egged it a couple of days later.)
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I would not take my 4 year old to a political rally/gathering/whatever for the opposition because of #1. However, there are some normal Democrats in this state and I don’t think Phil erred in thinking that nothing would happen. He said he’s been to plenty of things like this before and everything was peaceful.
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I think it’s funny that the party that claims to support free speech for all is downing Phil for even GOING to this function. I’m GLAD when I see Kerryites at Bush rallies. If they care that much to show up, it means they’re pissed off, and that’s good. As long as people can be pissed off peacefully, what’s the harm in going to the enemy’s camp and checking things out?
As far as this whole thing being staged, let’s analyze just how big Huntington, WV is. We have less than 50 thousand people, everyone is related to everyone else and you can’t keep a secret in this town. Had the union thug actually been Phil Jr. in disguise, we’d have rock solid proof by now because too many people know this family. (Most people at least KNOW OF the Parlocks because they are unusual in that they have 10 kids and are pretty unapologetic about it.)
I’m actually kind of surprised that the name of the thug hasn’t come out yet; I will do some digging.
Phil Parlock Sr. was at HQ the night of the shooting.
Abbie, if spiderman9 is to be believed, the Parlocks took the license plate of the thug in question–they should have the name soon.
Perhaps.
But in 1996, he went to a rally and claimed that he had signs ripped from his hands.
In 2000, he went to a rally, claimed that a girl climbed up on his shoulders and had the sign ripped from her hands. (Although a policeman at the event noted that he saw the Bush supporters tearing up their own signs).
In 2004, he goes to a rally with his daughter on his shoulders and claims that the sign was ripped from her hands.
I’m just waiting to see whether it is his granddaughter* who has her sign ripped from her hands in 2008.
** (Phil jr. should be able to get a kid by then.)*
The fact that he hid the signs until the last moment sounds pretty skeevy-like he wanted to provoke a reaction.
An quote/apology I read by the union president said that they are going to handle it internally. They probably already know who the guy is.
As far as Phil being at HQ the night of the shooting, what are you implying? And I’m curious: how do you know he was there?
Do you have any idea how many Republicans are in West Virginia? Not too freakin’ many. We’re about 29% of the state’s registered voters. Those who are really active in the party, like Phil, are at EVERYTHING.
Lemme put it this way. I’m a registered Republican. You know how on Election Day people run the polls? They show up at like, 5am and get paid about 100 bucks for working 14 hours or so, and you’ve gotta have people from both parties running things?
If I wanted to skip school on November 2nd, I’d have NO trouble getting in to do the polls. Pretty much any Republican who wants to do it, can, because there’s so few of us and they’ve got to at least make an attempt to keep things balanced. We’re a rare breed.
Hey Abbie, both of my great-grandfathers were “coal union nutsos”.
Even if it was NOT staged, the man had to know, from past experience, that what he was doing was provocative and since had had signs before, WTF was he thinking bringing his three year old daughter into a rally and having HER carry a sign for the opposition?
Yes, the guy who ripped it away from her was an absolute ass. But her father shouldn’t have let HER hold the sign-he should have been protecting her.
I would say the EXACT same thing to a father who took a three year old into a Cheney rally letting her carrying a Kerry/Edwards sign.
He’s not the victim. The only victim here is poor Sophia.
100 bucks?! I’ve never gotten $100 for working at the polls. But I guess I get donkey wages, not elephant.