Most of audience stands for the Pledge of Allegiance, which was not on the Leagure of Women Voters' agenda. The moderator for the League of Women Voters said for audience members to "stand up in presumably a planned way..seems a bit disrespectful." The videographer was escorted out just as Joe Walsh began speaking. The rules prohibited recording the event.
This YouTube video is very interesting.
It shows the beginning of the candidate forum of the 8th Congressional district. It is a candidate forum, where for only fifty minutes three candidates for the 8th Congressional District are allowed to discuss the issues for the one and only time.
For the one and only time incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean showed up to face off against Republican challenger Joe Walsh and Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer.
How democratic.
The moderator says she was “disrespected” because audience members stood up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
Perhaps a commenter can characterize such a reaction.
The videographer is being escorted out of the auditorium at this point. Electronic recording of the debate was forbidden. As he is shown the door, the first speaker, Joe Walsh is beginning.
In another free-speech-this-is-democracy-in-America moment, the Lake County League of Women Voters prohibited audience members (other than those with a privileged press passes-see comment section of this article) to video the forum discussion.
It seems obvious such a policy prevents a large audience from viewing the exchange and discussion on YouTube for example.
I’ll let you speculate if
- the League decided on its own this would be better for liberal Democrat Bean or
- the League listened to the Bean campaign’s preference or
- it was “school policy,” as a security guard told one blogster before the event,
to prohibit people from electronically recording the event.
Regardless whether it was a pre-condition set down by Bean’s handlers or the League decided to prevent broader dissemination on its own or the school has some really wacky policy, the prohibition doesn’t help the democratic process.
Someone certainly didn’t want any supporters of Joe Walsh to have a videotape of any Bean gaffe or audience reaction to any Bean’s outrageous positions.
Such a videotape could have gone viral on the internet, something liberals would want to prevent.
This League of Women Voters moderator should never, ever, be a moderator again.
How ridiculous can a person get. The Pledge of Allegiance is not on the Agenda. Tough Noogies Audience.
Hey moderator, ever heard about rolling with things that aren’t on the agenda.
Will you tell someone who is ill to not upchuck on stage because it’s not on the agenda?
It’s not like the Public you supposedly want involved suggested singing the North Korean anthem.
Then, when the Public by their action essentially tell her to get over herself and the agenda by doing the pledge, she scolds them about disrespecting HER. Good for them – they “disrespected” stupidity.
What part of SHE lost didn’t she get?
What part of “this is America and an event where people are taking time to participate didn’t she get?
Let’s see, students are no longer required to make the pledge in classrooms.
OOPSY – did the moderator think this night’s Pledge was “Politically Incorrect” and not in keeping with someone’s Liberal/Socialist views?
Here’s a thought, if the Pledge is incorrect at a public function that takes place in a publicly supported building – move the moderator, the LWV, and the Debate to Iraq.
Maybe America and her traditions will be more appreciated.
Yes, I’m ticked.
Omitting the pledge of allegence must have been a democart/liberal/socialist/communist plot hatched by the supporters of the democrat/liberal/socialist/communist Melissa Bean and all her democrat/liberal/socialist/communist friends at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who fund her campaign. Yeh, thats it! I’ve never trusted the chamber of commerce, always did believe it was a marxist/nazi front for the democrat/liberal/socialist/communist agenda. GOD BLESS AMERICA.
How about this –
God HELP America!
America is under attack even though there are no bombs dropping.
All those people who run from their oppressive/failing countries come here because what we have created and fought for is so much better.
The attempt to turn America into the very things they run from is disgusting.
Here, people work to better themselves. They give their lives to protect the country and freedoms because they know it’s the right thing to do – not because they are forced to join at gunpoint or get kidnapped and enslaved. The reason people work harder is because they want what’s better and don’t want to keep the status quo in effect because it’s easier.
Politcally Correct BS is so far out of hand that people who think in terms of Common Sense fear for our country’s demise.
The Modertor could have quickly adjusted the agenda. It would have taken less time and been more polite than her scolding the audience after they said the pledge.
Someone else can decide if this was the choice of an elitist, a little Napoleon, a Liberal/etc., or an inexperienced “virgin” moderator.
If this had happened closer to 9/11/2001, the audience would probably have been far more “disrespectful”. How quickly some of us forget.
Your mischaracterization of events is absolutely astounding. I’ve been to a lot of these forums so I know that the League of Women Voters prohibits the filming of events by non-credentialed press because they don’t want footage from their forums to be used to explicitly support or smear any of the candidates. Whenever they can they have someone come in to professionally film it and then give the footage to comcast so that it can be shown in its entirety.
In terms of saying the pledge, the feelings of the moderator don’t make a difference. There was very limited time to run the debate and the League does not characteristically say the pledge at the beginning of debates like this. Time constraints were probably the reason that the moderator was against saying the pledge initially. Once the audience ran rough-shod over her, it did become disrespectful. You can say whatever you want about patriotism, which is something I believe our country is in dire need of, but I think no one is fooled into thinking that making a scene like that was anything other than political posturing. These same impartial “patriots,” who were really the ones standing in the way of a fair and democratic exchange of ideas, are now posting graphic and very personal attacks about the moderator who was doing nothing more than her job. Do these bold and fearless warriors for liberty really need to hide in the safety and anonymity of a mob to make their ideas heard? Do they need to resort to juvenile antics like talking and loudly coughing while Bean was speaking but strangely, stay completely silent during Walsh’s speeches?
I know that this will embarrass none of the people who took part in what happened but it should. Bravery and courage are what this country was founded on and the people who orchestrated this and are perpetuating these falsehoods after the fact are showing themselves to be the worst kind of coward. The only reasonable assumption based on what I’ve seen is that they don’t believe Joe Walsh can win based on his ideas so they have to create scandals that make him look good. If they did believe in the strength of his message why wouldn’t they just sit back? If he were really that intelligent or skilled as a politician or even that dedicated to a good cause, failing intelligence and skill, he would be convincing more people every day and bury Bean in a landslide of votes. It doesn’t look like that is what’s happening.
Irene,
The drum Joe Walsh pounds is the idea we are “losing our country”.
When the League of Women Voters play right into this characterization the bad press associated with their misstep is ONLY attributable to them.
To rant about Ms. Bean or Mr. Walsh’s involvement in anything the LWV did or failed to do is just a bit naive.
The failure of this moderator to recognize a democratic movement right before her eyes is a little slow.
To then try to cast aspersions on the audience’s behavior is spectacularly idiotic.
The disruptive element is, and always will be, dealt with by competent moderators, not edified.
This moderator was both inexperienced and unintelligent in her choices and helped the Walsh campaign illustrate everything they had hoped to illustrate about a broken and hurting country.
Ms. Bean said nothing, Mr. Walsh said nothing and, had the moderator been smarter, the moderator would have said nothing and moved on rather than wasting those precious minutes making the case to elect Joe Walsh in front of his entire district and the nation.
Ah, Priest – I think you may have been sipping too much of the sacred wine or perhaps in your case – kool aid.
LOL — that Allan Kay. He’s such a card.
:-/
Disrespect or POOR PLANNING? The crowd could not plan this in advance unless they had an agenda.
If the league has done these events before and we all know they have was the pledge forgotten then too. Times are changing and Americans are waking up
Are we Americans getting to complacent and allowing a vocal minority to set the path of the silent majority.
It takes 30 seconds to say this:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States, and to the Republic for which it stands:one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for all.
Created June 14, 1923
Heck Even Sally Wiggins said the pledge at her small fund raiser as seen on her facebook page.
if you support America and the Flag and reciting the Pledge then you will want to vote for Sally Oeffling Wiggins for Judge
I have attended some of her events and the Pledge is given
She also has it on her facebook page
and it all happened before this debacle
Vote for Sally for Judge
My name is Joe Ptak and I live in Island Lake, Illinois.
I attended the Joe Walsh-Melissa Bean “forum” and I WAS THE INDIVIDUAL who stood up and wanted to know why the pledge of allegiance was not going to be recited…I thought it might have been an oversight.
I was flabbergasted and stunned to hear the LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS moderator say to me, and the audience, that it was never part of their program at these events and will not allowed.
Please keep in mind that this “forum” was organized in Grayslake High School for the benefit of the students, who were asking the questions. Furthermore, there were numerous students present (gaining extra credit) as well as 350 adults and media who packed the auditorium.
I served in the USAFR’s for ten (10) years and there were many veterans in attendance.
I was so proud when the audience rose up one by one, then in mass to recite the pledge of allegiance with loud and heavy emphasis on the words LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.
The moderator then had the gall to admonish the audience and for “disrespecting her”…my wife told me if that woman did not shut up she was going to get her “Brooklyn up” (being from NY).
I happen to be an Hispanic immigrant from Peru, South America, who was brought to this great country by my parents, along with three other siblings in 1960, when I was eight years old.
I was raised in Chicago, have seen, and experienced a lot in this world.
People are literary dying each day for just the OPPORTUNITY to live in this great land I call my home.
There are ignorant people in this land who do not have the slightest idea, nor understand, what it means to be an AMERICAN.
Our Liberty, Freedom of Speech and the Press are never guaranteed and we must always fight to maintain them.
I think our students in attendance witnessed that first hand and gained a lot of extra credit for themselves.