August 6, 2008
Bizarre Incident During Obama Visit to Ohio College Is Seen as Unavoidable
Officials of the U.S. Secret Service say there is nothing they could have done to avoid an incident yesterday in which Barack Obama was heckled by a strangely behaving man in the press section during an appearance at an Ohio college.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was beginning a town-hall style meeting at Baldwin-Wallace College when John Quinn, a freelance photographer on assignment for Bloomberg News, interrupted him by calling on him to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Senator Obama went along and led the crowd through the pledge.
Mr. Quinn subsequently refused to give his name to other journalists in the press pen. A video of the incident shows Mr. Quinn shoving his hand into camera lenses, shouting at other reporters, and responding to requests for his name and press affiliation by saying, “I was speaking as John Q. Public.”
“Nobody wants to honor the flag,” Mr. Quinn says in the video. “I had to speak up.”
Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said today that the agency took no action because “this guy was a credentialed member of the press. He has every right to his freedom of speech.” If Mr. Quinn had threatened or advanced toward Mr. Obama, the situation would have been handled differently, Mr. Wiley said.
George T. Richard, a spokesman for Baldwin-Wallace College, said that the Obama campaign handled the press-credential checking for the event and that the Secret Service had carefully searched members of the media, as well as others, as they entered the gymnasium where Senator Obama spoke.
Mr. Richard, who witnessed the incident, said, “I thought Obama did a great job of handling it.” He said: “I was impressed with how well Obama identified the issue, engaged the person, and defused the situation. And then they just moved right on.”
Judith Czelusniak, a spokeswoman for Bloomberg News, confirmed today that Mr. Quinn was on assignment for her company. “He was hired for that assignment, and there are no more assignments scheduled,” she said.
Peter Schmidt | Posted on Wednesday August 6, 2008 | PermalinkComments
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Good thing Obama had just memorized the Pledge of Allegiance the day before. Whew! That was a close one!
— Timmy Aug 6, 02:27 PM #
Timmy, thank you for your gracious contribution to the civility of this campaign.
— jeff Aug 6, 02:35 PM #
Timmy, a better one (or at least more truthful one) would have been that McCain couldn’t remember the pledge – or his daughter’s name for that matter.
— TMAC Aug 6, 02:39 PM #
Did he say it with or without the god reference that was added during the Cold War?
— Pledge Originalist Aug 6, 02:43 PM #
TMAC: Thanks for displaying your bigoted ageism. Talk about lack of civility.
— Bob Aug 6, 02:43 PM #
Bob,
How is stating the fact that McCain has memory problems ageism? Seems to me it is a statement of fact.
— gl Aug 6, 02:49 PM #
And Mr. Quinn’s little stunt advanced the knowledge of the American electorate…how? The entire campaign process has become farce, with its incessant fixation on matters that do absolutely nothing to address the problems facing our nation. BUT, since we now KNOW at least one candidate can recite the Pledge of Allegiance, all HAS to turn out well. Right?
— Just asking Aug 6, 02:57 PM #
Go easy on Mac. He’s still trying to figure out if al Qaeda in Iraq is Sunni or Shiite.
— Ugh Aug 6, 03:01 PM #
With his winning smile, tempered reasoning, and voice of pure molasses, He quieted the Baldwin-Wallace campus as no other could!
— seth Aug 6, 03:19 PM #
I’m surprised Obama agreed to recite the pledge, he is after all a “citizen of the world.”
http://rightwingprofessor.blogspot.com/
— rightwingprofessor Aug 6, 03:33 PM #
RW Prof: if that surprises you, then you’re in for a nasty shock this November
— Zing! Aug 6, 03:46 PM #
To #10: So? Citizenship is a nested concept. Most people I know are citizens of a city, a county, a state, the U.S., AND the world. I see no inconsistency or contradiction there, although it takes someone capable of careful thought to act as responsibly as possible at all levels simultaneously.
— Pledge Originalist Aug 6, 03:47 PM #
To build on #7’s comments, I wonder about this: A man in the employ of a company owned by a sitting Republican mayor entered an Obama rally using his press pass, and then proceeded to disrupt the proceedings. If he’s there on Bloomberg’s dime, he is not there as John Q. Public. Do journalists who abuse their press passes in this way have their passes revoked? If they don’t, they certainly should.
— Pledge Originalist Aug 6, 03:53 PM #
It’s hardly a revelation that ageism is ok with supporters of a party that already endorses killing the unborn up to the moment (and even after, perhaps) the little tykes are ready to clear the birth canal. After all, in Oregon, the state already encourages people to check-out voluntarily by paying for suicide rather than medical care. Hmmm. . . Perhaps it was more appropriate than we thought for Obama to make that speech before a screaming bunch of fanatics in Berlin…
— Publius Aug 6, 03:53 PM #
Referring to Para #4 of the article:
“Nobody wants to honor the flag,” Mr. Quinn says in the video. “I had to speak up.”
Consider the stateement: “ “Nobody” wants to “Honor” “
It is “All Inclusive,” —- i.e., it includes all citizenry (Inclusive of all Democrats, and Republicans).
Wonder how McCain feels about being included in the grouping —- and, of being accused of “Not Honoring” the “Flag,” by this “So-Called Reporter”—- Will he [McCain] or his campaign issue a “Response/Statement?”
— zahid Aug 6, 04:27 PM #
Turns out that 99% of what Republicans mock about Obama are things that Reagan said also. And the funniest thing is to watch McCain mock Obama for something said, only to go back in the files and see that McCain said the same thing as Obama a year or two before. He’s a total tool of the neo-con cabal. Man, if McCain is president, this country’s gonna go further down the shi#%er than Bush pushed us down into it.
— Didi P. Aug 6, 04:27 PM #
Ditto with Just Asking and Pledge Originalist.
I hardly feel it’s news and while we make comments about this article, we are contributing to the fact that people are not talking about what is most important, for many in this forum it’s probably education. I haven’t heard enough about things that matter and too much about crap that wouldn’t change a thing.
— She Aug 6, 04:30 PM #
Amazing how #14 worked the right to life agenda into the argument and utilized the reference of bias that was only used by another Blogger as a way to contribute to the discussion—have you ever noticed that the most resonating and incendiary comments lack any real thought or intellectual relevance, but they have the addictive, and popular mainstream components that we crave, a truncated literary equivalent to McDonald’s French Fries, tasty but utterly worthless. The fact that an individual is forgetful is either a fact or it isn’t—just as is the fact of a person’s race, creed or religion—transitioning the fact into a single word that reflects lack of thought and myopia is our current social predicament and the in vogue way to have arguments that resemble the words of a little man behind the curtain—the good news—it won’t really be a factor any longer as we simply cannot sustain our current social and economic structure—that might be good news, because we are unable to engage in civil or even informed debates which in turn disallows an informed populace. Forward progression may not be possible.
With regard to the pledge of allegiance, it’s about as meaningful as singing Karaoke to American Idol on your plasma TV—the good news, it has mainstream resonance; the bad news—it lacks any real structure or meaning—real issues like our fragile economy, our destructive foreign policies, freakish population expansion, our completely out of control consumption—and our utter devastation of natural resources to name a few, our the real issues. Not primary school recitation in reference to a symbolic ideal (an ideal of which we clearly resemble very little of what was intended).
— patriot Aug 6, 04:52 PM #
Good think someone is standing up and reminding us to honor the flag while the current administration tramples the constitution. Now, lets see… which one should we honor, the symbol or the substance?
— Bill (Atlanta, GA) Aug 6, 05:03 PM #
Regarding #18, dismissing the first paragraph’s two wandering and disjointed sentences (try diagramming them—go on, try it!) one finally gets to the meat of the response in the second paragraph: a screed about “our fragile economy” [stll the world’s most powerful and benificent], “our destructive foreign policies” [which ended the tyranny of Communism which killed 100 million people, and Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese militarism which killed about 50 million people, and the tyranny of the Taliban so that girls can now go to school and women can be more than prisoners in their homes], “freakish population expansion” [freakish only to a Malthusian zealot who hasn’t flown across our country (and may others) and seen how truly open and expansive it (and they) is (are)], “our completely out of control consumption” [And what about the productivity that consumption produces, a productivity that fuels the global economic engine, global culture, and global services?]—“and our utter devastation of natural resources” [ever been to Brazil? to China? to Indonesia? to Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall? That will show you what resource depletion and environmental destruction really is!]“to name a few” [please, name a few more—seriously, some real ones this time] “the real issues. Not primary school recitation in reference to a symbolic ideal (an ideal of which we clearly resemble very little of what was intended)” [obviously #18 has no idea what “was intended”]. As my Old Country grandmother would say, “Such thinking! Surely there’s a cure?!?”
— Publius Aug 6, 09:12 PM #
Its a good thing none of us is either of the canadiates press agent.
— Dr. Bill Aug 6, 11:11 PM #
Alright Publius, it is all understood. But keep in mind that just because you can cite a “worse example” for every issue brought up by #18, you have not justified everything that has been done in the name of those mysterious original intentions.
— Pluribus Aug 6, 11:16 PM #
Either a plant or lunatic, only I would know. If I existed.
— god Aug 7, 01:20 AM #
To build on #13, I personally saw people carrying Republican party signs heckle Ann Richards at one of her speeches for Governor of Texas. She addressed them respectfully. A few weeks later a man carried a Democratic sign at Geo. W. Bush’s speech for Governor of Texas. By all accounts he did not speak. Nonetheless he was arrested.
I value freedom of speech and think that views on it do belong in a presidential campaign. I think both the “reporter” and Senator Obama revealed their underlying philosophies in this event. Does anyone believe that the Republican candidate supports Freedom of Speech more strongly than the Democratic candidate in any election in progress now?
— aubrey mcintosh Aug 7, 10:30 AM #
Timmy! Yo, man! I thought you said the lobotomy helped!?!?
— Buford Aug 7, 11:23 AM #
Nice suicidal career move. Of course, he probably could get a job now at Fox News.
— Ron Aug 7, 12:17 PM #
Pledge Originalist –
Absolutely they get their credentials pulled. No question about it. Like this guy did. You did read that part, right?? Best part is, we police ourselves in these cases. We pull the credentials, before the officials do it. Our rep is on the line. Every journalist I know hates this story because this jerk makes us look bad. So don’t worry. He’s out.
— Who? Aug 7, 04:30 PM #
Re:12 What city are you a citizen of? People are citizens of their state and the US. You may reside in a city, but you aren’t a citizen of it. DC might be the only exception to that.
— JB Aug 7, 05:56 PM #
28 comments on this issue…
See what comes from that rigorous 6 hour work week and having your salary paid by taxpayers who have no say in evaluating your job performance.
Teaching rocks!
(Let’s not forget private universities – what a comfort to know that as my taxes rise, the $20 billion in Harvard’s endowment will continue its tax-free march to ownership of the planet in 20 years…)
— CAS127 Aug 7, 06:20 PM #
TIMMAH!!!!
— Timmy Aug 7, 06:21 PM #
This incident was a stupid idea, but if anyone wants to actually do something about how the way the presidential race is covered try to ask a real question and get it on video. Neither BHO nor McCain are going to fare too well if someone presses them on the area where they’re weakest
— TLB Aug 7, 11:48 PM #
hilarious to hear charges of “ageism” tossed about when one of the job requirements is that you’re at least 35 years old (discrimination!)
— mojotron Aug 8, 09:46 AM #
Actaully, on August 27 2004, Mr. McCain did actually forget the words to the pledge and recited it incorrectly at the beginning of a “support the troops” rally in Phoenix. Anyone can make a mistake, though. What does this have to do with his ability to lead the country?
So what if Obama’s given it a hundred or a thousand times before. That doesn’t signify anything, any more than McCain’s simple mistake does.
A lot of the comments here are pretty idiotic and ill-informed. Maybe that says more about the American electorate than these flubs or lack thereof say anything about our candidates.
— Sgt. Malcolm Tibbs Aug 8, 11:50 AM #
Another example of American zealotry. American politics reflects just how blindly patriotic American citizens are, while they allow their government to trample on the principles their country is founded on.
— Canadian Sense Aug 8, 02:41 PM #
Today on a airline flight I stood up and demanded that we first sign the “Pledge of Allegiance” before take off. I told everybody to get up and put their hand over their heart and respect this country, dammit.
They weren’t to happy to oblige as Obama was and lead me off in handcuffs. – SNARK
— Duval Slugger Aug 8, 08:14 PM #