Background on this issue here: the short version is that Rep. Carol Shea-Porter is rather belatedly attempting to ‘correct’ the impression that she’s been thrown out of town halls in the past. Such an impression jars badly with this video of her having one of her constituents thrown out of current town halls – complete with her mockery of the man.
By the way? Support Frank Guinta.
Anyway, Rep. Shea-Porter said that it happened (Denver Post):
Carol Shea-Porter and Susan Mayer had tickets and were admitted to the event staged in an airplane hangar. They even were allowed to stay through the entire show, despite the fact that they sat near the TV cameras and removed their sweaters to reveal red T-shirts that said, “Turn Your Back on Bush.”
But when they left their seats to join the crowd on the floor as the president left the hangar, two burly guys grabbed them and gave them the bum’s rush.
“We were there for the whole event, and they knew darn well that we didn’t disrupt anything,” said Shea-Porter. “We never opened our mouths the whole time.”
Except that Shea-Porter now says that it didn’t (Portsmouth Herald):
“Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter fraudulently claimed that she was not ejected from a 2005 town hall event hosted by then-President George W. Bush. However, four years ago Ms. Shea-Porter told the same newspaper that she was removed by Secret Service agents for voicing her opposition to President Bush’s policies,” read the state GOP release.
[snip]
Shea-Porter said the accusations are false.
“The basic facts have not changed no matter what news story you read. My friend and I sat respectfully and quietly though the whole event. After it was over and we were leaving, I was grabbed by someone, a thug,” Shea-Porter said. “My friend (Sue Mayer) told the person to stop grabbing me and he let go. It may have been a security person, but to this day we don’t who it was. I was there, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Only, at the time Rep. Shea-Porter said that it did (the, umm, Portsmouth Herald):
Susan Mayer, of Lee, and Carol Shea-Porter, of Rochester, were removed from Bush’s Feb. 16 talk on Social Security for wearing T-shirts that said “Turn Your Back on Bush.” The event was touted as a town hall discussion open to the public.
The women said they caused no disruption but were physically removed by Secret Service agents when they stood with their backs turned after the speech ended.
And while Rep. Shea-Porter’s now insisting that, no, really, it didn’t (Now!Hampshire):
“I was proud to be there to stand up for senior citizens, but there were no disruptions and no rudeness and I wasn’t removed,” Shea-Porter told the Herald. “If it happened, don’t you think there would have been photos or video or news stories from that day? There aren’t because it didn’t happen.”
…apparently nobody’s told this to NH Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley (RedHampshire):
“Our congresswoman was removed because even silent dissent was never allowed at any event with Bush,” writes Buckley of (sic) the liberal blog BlueHampshire.com.
I wish that they’d just settle on one story, and stick with it. It’s not our fault that the Democrats made a fetish on ‘speaking truth to power’ when the latter was not held by Democrats. It’s even more not our fault that the Democrats can’t seem to get a handle on the former, either…
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
This woman is a laughing stock in the Granite State and would be in trouble even if the country wasn’t moving against her, philosophically. (The killer is that, a decade ago, a loon like her couldn’t have been elected dog catcher…how times have changed in this denatured bastion of ‘live free or die.’)