Here’s the link via Power Line Blog (in case the original video is removed again):
This is really weird. A congressman, Bob Etheridge, from NC, is approached by two students on a sidewalk in Washington. One of the students asks him if he supports the Obama agenda, whereupon the congressman goes nuts, literally attacking the student.
I’m pretty much a libertarian, so I don’t have a whole lot of respect for our elected officials, as a rule. But even I wouldn’t have believed it unless I saw it. It’s as if he really thinks he’s above these peasants, and how dare they ask him a question while he’s walking. Or maybe he was just drunk and looking for a fight.
He’s my Congressman. Originally a moderate Democrat and quite approachable, serious about representing his district. (He was redistricted in 2002, losing the heavily Democratic Research Triangle, and put into an Etheridge-mandered district stretching a third of the length of the state, strongly rural and with a Republican majority. We reelected him anyway.
But he came to the job from the post of (elected) State Superintendent of Education, and he has gotten quite egotistical over the past few years. A serious shame; he was a good Congressman for quite a long time.
Okay, I can sort of sympathize with what must be frustration at yet another pissant who’s certain Obama is up to nefarious deeds (might be a lot to read into “the Obama agenda” but not unreasonably so), but that was a terrible, terrible reaction.
The assault itself is simply unacceptable as person-to-person interaction goes, and he’s damned lucky he didn’t do more than grab the kid around the neck. Politically, it was just stupid. What public figure sees a camera and doesn’t immediately go into image-defense mode? How do politicians not know by now that anything you do in public will get found out?
He made an apology, but it’s not going to be near enough. He’s toast.
Having now seen the video, Etheridge was lucky the kid he grabbed was easily intimidated. At least by the point where he grabbed the kid by the head, self defensive ass kicking was likely authorized under local law. As it is, there’s possibly a case for simple assault based on what is shown in the video. Unless some of the edits removed scenes of physical provocation, there’s no excuse for him to touch the kid.
His attitude came across as if he thought he was rebuking a child who got caught fingerpainting on the wall. I’m not sure he even thought about what he was doing.
I’ve seen worse. It’s not much of an attack; he just pushes the camera away and then keeps repeating “who are you?” And they never really answered that, either.
Maybe it was students daring to ask him a question, maybe it was the next James O’Keefe lying in wait.
Did you watch the whole thing? He grabs the kid by the wrist and will not let go…until he grabs the kid around the neck. Not in a strangling grip, but he’s clearly restraining him. I’m fairly sure it’s not necessary for the student to identify himself, either, as Etheridge isn’t a law enforcement officer. It was skeevy that he wouldn’t, but I would imagine that once Etheridge got physical it was as much for the student’s protection as anything.
The proper answer to such a possibility is to not give them any ammunition. This way they didn’t even have to fake footage.
Did you watch the same video I did? Granted the student sticks the mike in his face to get a comment, but he grabs the kid’s wrist and holds it for quite a long time, even after the student asks him to let go. Then he grabs him by the neck and restrains him by putting his arm around his shoulders AND THE STUDENT NEVER EVER TOUCHED HIM.
I don’t necessarly blame him for being a bit wary but that was some serious paranoia and over-the-top defensiveness.
Totally inexcusable. The Congressman is lucky he wasn’t either (a) charged with assault, or (b) beaten up by the kid he was manhandling, who would have had every right to open a can of whup-ass on him.
