Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
A friend of mine who is not the sort generally to find anything Glenn Greenwald writes persuasive dropped me a note last night to register his outrage over this weird story involving Alaska's Tea Party candidate Joe Miller, his use of active-duty soldiers as bodyguards, and a journalist who wound up in handcuffs at one of his campaign events. As Greenwald describes it,
One of the more disturbing election incidents took place in Alaska on Sunday night, when private "guards" working for GOP Senate nominee Joe Miller forcibly detained and handcuffed a journalist as he tried to ask the candidate questions which he did not want to answer. This photograph shows the journalist, Alaska Dispatch's Tony Hopfinger, handcuffed in a chair, surrounded by Miller's guards. This story became much worse yesterday when video was released that was taken by a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News showing that these guards thuggishly threatened at least two other reporters, from ADN, with physical detention as they tried to find out what happened, demanded that they leave or else "be handcuffed," and physically blocked them from filming the incident all while threatening to physically remove them from the event, which was advertised to the public.
But revelations today have made the story much, much worse still. ADN now reports that not only was Joe Miller's excuse for why he had hired private guards a lie, but two of the guards who handcuffed the journalist and threatened others are active-duty soldiers in the U.S. military.
Reports are now coming out that this security company is tied to extremist group loosely associated (very loosely, from what I can see) with Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.
Here's the video that shows what happened. Salon describes it as "very dramatic." Now, I confess: I watched the video and my first thought was, "This by you is dramatic? Salon, you need a life. That's a total snoozer."
My second thought was that maybe I shouldn't be trusted on this. I've probably been a bit desensitized from living in a country where electoral politics look like this and where "thuggish threats to reporters" means this. That doesn't mean critics aren't right to say that what happened here shouldn't happen in America. Greenwald urges journalists of every stripe to protest this incident. I've got more urgent things to protest, but yes, on reflection, I'll register my distaste.
No, we shouldn't be happy with the idea of active-duty members of the armed forces performing citizen-arrests on journalists at campaign events. That's basically un-American. I'm not talking about whether they broke the law; I'm talking about the spirit of things. You don't want Claire Berlinski looking at videos of your campaign events and thinking, "Oh, that's just normal."
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Jul '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
Things are getting bad in the Fascist States of America when you can't even push someone without getting detained and held for the police.
Jun '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
Pretty slick slide show of hi res photos for what is often a very chaotic situation. The reporter apparently owns his own publication or blog. The other reporters seem to think they had a right to be there, however the official policeman on the seen acknowledged that it was a private event and the entire facility had been rented. We see nothing of the original confrontation between the detained reporter and the men who were apparently acting as a private security group. Unusual. to say the least.
Jul '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
I took a look at the video and it does look bad. Its not clear to me from the video what actually happened. But that doesn't really matter the "optics" as they say, are bad and reflect poorly on the candidate. It doesn't matter if the press "set him up" or blew the situation out of proportion. The fact is that conservatives and libertarians are held to higher standards.
Don't bemoan this fact. The US has a lot of problems but holding our politicians to standards that are too high isn't one of them.
May '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
I'm serenely confident that there are few normal Americans reading Slate.
Edited on Oct 22, 2010 at 4:40amJun '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
After further investigation,I found out the Miller party was having a private viewing that evening. They were all on the porch watching England...er, Britain come up over the horizon. He was beefing up on his international policy creds.
Sep '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
I guess that somewhere in the constitution journalist are given the right to make an obnoxious ass out of themselves without suffering any of the consequences an ordinary American would. Is that what is meant by freedom of the press?
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
Jun '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
The press doesn't automatically have the right to attend private events. The press has every freedom to write about the event, but not from inside the building, if they're not invited. People who rent buildings also have freedom of association.
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
No, they don't. But would you wish to elect someone who exercised his right to exclude the press this way? The fact that something is legal (and it appears quite a bit in this scenario was not) does not make it admirable in someone seeking office.
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
By "no, they don't," etoiile, I mean that I agree with you--no, the press doesn't automatically have the right to attend. I didn't mean no, the renters of buildings don't have freedom of association.
Jun '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
The Miller people were within their rights, but not very wise.
May '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
You have got to be kidding me ! Has anyone seen Joe Millers explanation? This is over some stupid little incident . Obviously an attempt to cause doubt about him. COME ON! http://beta.video.foxnews.com/v/4377633/joe-miller-under-fire-over-reporter-scuffle/?playlist_id=87937
Sep '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
Let some crack pot, self promoting so called journalist suffer some well deserved consequences and the wagons are circled. “The video shows what happened” – The video shows what the person making the video wants you to see. “According to reports had no permission …” These reports need to be viewed with zero skepticism and taken as fact. We’ll see how true they turn out to be. “But would you like to elect someone who uses their right to exclude the press this way.” I know of no politician who does not exclude the press from certain events when it serves his/her purposes to do so. Why are journalist held in such low esteem?
Jun '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
The story makes clear that the "active-duty soldiers" were not at the rally qua soldiers but as moonlighters for a securty service. If they had been moonlighting as Wal*Mart cashiers and grabbed a shoplifter, Salon would happily lede a story with "Wal*Mart Secretly Uses Active-Duty Soldiers to Harass Minorites and Poor" This isn't a posse comitatus issue.
That said, I agree that this first round of tea-party candidates is less than optimal, Joe Miller included, but I still sent some cash to him as well as Angle and O'Donnell. More credible conservatives weren't on offer to go up against the establishment and these, and others, were kamikaze candidates just a few months ago. Now win or lose, I believe that better candidates with similar values will be coming out in 2012 -- when they will really be needed.
Edited on Oct 22, 2010 at 7:03amRe: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
This is a mega-fail by the event planner. It's easy enough to sequester areas where you don't want the press, so you don't have to be seen arresting a reporter.
Jul '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
If, in fact, the journalist was trespassing at an invitation-only event, the guards' other choice would have been to bodily drag him from the building, which would have made for even uglier video.
May '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
I'm sorry, but while the idea of Alaska appeals to me, every bit of non-fiction evidence from the state reads like some bad cable access show. Nothing that goes on up there makes much sense to me and that includes Sarah Palin's brother-in-law nonsense, Lisa Murkowski's absurd write-in candidacy and now this bit of ridiculous drama -- ridiculous from both sides I might add. The "reporter" is a twit, but so is the candidate -- I mean come on, who puts a reporter in handcuffs? Everything in Alaska politics comes off like some dysfunctional family's particularly bad Thanksgiving gathering. I'm only glad they only have one House representative. Sheesh.
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
It was a Town Hall meeting.
Jul '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
This from a man who has to weave his way through throngs of zombie-like homeless every time he walks his kids to school.....and is represented in Congress by, um, whom?
May '10
Re: Joe Miller's Alaskan Militia: How Bad Does this Look to Normal People?
The Alaska Repub elite are out to keep control of their state party. They will do anything possible to keep Murkowski in power. Do not believe anything you hear or read that is negative about Miller.
I saw that 40 Alaska Republicans have signed a letter to Miller asking for an explanation of why he was reprimanded from something called the North star borough. They are throwing everything they can at him! It reminds me of what they did to Palin.
Some friends they are!