William Kostric, the man who brought a gun to protest President Obama's health care town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire made an appearance on Chris Matthews' Hardball show yesterday.
I've noticed that the cable news shows like Hardball and The Ed Show have been bringing a lot of the town hall protesters on lately. In one respect it's not really a fair fight since they're not used to being on TV and it can be a bit intimidating, I'm sure. On the other hand, if they have such great points to make, I'd be in favor of hearing them. After watching a lot of footage from multiple sources of protesters getting up and spouting nothing but hot air and cliches, it's great that someone is following through and giving them a chance to show whether they have anything of value to add to the national debate or if they're merely stirring up emotions for no reason at all.
I mean, it's wonderful to love your country and be afraid of it "turning into Russia" but if that's all you can do ... say something provocative without being able to back it up...then you're harming not helping.
Here's part of the Hardball segment:
It's pretty easy to tell that Chris is pushing the guy from the start. I don't necessarily think that's bad, but you still can't tell me he's being objective. Use of "G-damn" in a string of comments where you're not letting the guy respond makes you look like you dont really care enough to engage in metered, back-and-forth debate. Chris implies that the entire history of people with guns at presidential events is horrible and dangerous. He asks the guy for "the (entire) history of people with guns at presidential events." Are you kidding me? That's such a broad question as to become unanswerable. Poor form there. But of course he got his moral outrage across to the Hardball fan-base.
These "personality magazines" where you gravitate towards the commentator who's personality you enjoy the most are obviously geared around the commentator having a strong opinion. The rub, for me, is that they also try to play double-duty and say they're objective journalists. Meh. Not reeeeeeaaaaallly.
I'm not saying they're lying by any stretch, but I will say that you have to filter the rhetoric more than you would from an objective news source (yes, I realize those dont exist any more - well, The News Hour w/ Jim Lehrer ?).
Back to the clip...
I think the guy does decently well on the show. He gets across that he wasn't there to kill the President, that he wasn't trying to incite violence, and that he just wanted people to think (albeit by provocation). It's hard for me to make a true assessment of whether he meant the gun to be provocative or whether that was simply the after-effect. I agree with Chris that the gun AND the sign together are a cause for people to think. Heck, if I were a Secret Service agent at that rally, I'd have an eagle eye on that sucker for sure.
But the Mr. Kostric's point is well taken too. What he did was entirely legal. If people start being afraid to carry guns, despite the legality, that right will be lost. It's really tempting to play the "what if" game with Mr. Kostric's gun. "What if a riot had happened? What would you have done with your gun?" "What if someone had overpowered you and shot the President?" Wow. That's a lot of what if's. What if aliens came down and shot laser beams at Obama? I mean seriously.
Kostric's idea that taxes are by their nature non-republican is a bit much though. Oppressive taxation without representation is bad, but somehow a radical fringe has gotten it in their brain that any taxes of any kind are automatically unconstitutional...which is absolutely wrong.
For me, at the end of the day, I think the guy should have known that bringing a gun near the President could have been dangerous to the President's life. And he should have realized that anyone who knew the quote on his sign could be neverous. Nonetheless, I also think that he had a right to wear the sidearm as long as he took reasonable precautions.
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