Neil Munro, a veteran Washington reporter who now works for the conservative blog the Daily Caller, says his shouted question at President Barack Obama “shouldn’t be the story.”
“The important thing is the president’s policy today, which could have a significant impact on American workers. I asked a question about that,” Munro told the blog after a firestorm of criticism (and right wing delight) over his repeated interruptions of the president’s address Friday on his new immigration policy.
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“Admittedly, it was in the middle of his speech. I thought he was ending his speech — his statement — but then I asked a question at the end and he turned his back on the reporters and walked away,” said Munro, an Irish-born conservative (married to an American) whose previous work includes alleging that the White House kanoodled with Islamic jihadis, nonetheless apparently could not contain his concern for the American worker long enough to let the president actually finish his statement. And Munro appears to have been the only reporter at the speech who thought the end of the president’s remarks had come.
“Timing these things is a little awkward. He speaks very well, very smoothly — very nice delivery. It’s hard to know when he’s about to end. I thought he was going to end today. I asked my question too early. He rebuked me. Fair enough.”
Or maybe not “fair enough.”
Munro is just the latest example of conservatives inviting the simultaneous rebuke of those who value courtesy and respect for the office of the president, and the jubilation of those on the right who detest Barack Obama and want no part of respecting him as president. From South Carolina Republican congressman Joe Wilson, who erupted with “you lie!” on the House floor as the president delivered a primetime address to the nation, in which he explained that healthcare reform would not permit illegal immigrants to take advantage of the system (and who then raised money off his unprecedented outburst), to Newt Gingrich’s thinly veiled denigration of the president in racial terms as the “food stamp president,” to the governor of Arizona jabbing her finger in the commander in chief’s face, to the various GOP officials who have thought it wisdom to email around cartoons depicting Obama as everything from a chimp to a spook, disrespect of this president has become part of the right wing routine. (To say nothing of the horrendous treatment of Michelle Obama by some on the right…)
Conservatives are quick to point out that George W. Bush was treated poorly by liberals, too. True enough. But if Mr. Bush’s place of birth was ever questioned, if his grades — as poor as they were known to be — were ever brought up by the likes of Donald Trump as proof he shouldn’t have gotten into Yale, and if he was called an affirmative action hire because his father and grandfather went to the Ivy League school, literally grandfathering him in, that would be news to most African-Americans.
Bush, and John McCain, and now Mitt Romney, received the presumption of Americanness and patriotism and humanity in a way that Obama never has. Indeed, this first black president of the United States has been relentlessly portrayed as an outsider, an alien, a monster and worse, a “boy” unworthy of his office, both before and after he was even elected. Worst of all, is the absence of leadership among the conservative and Republican elite pushing back on the most discourteous and outrageous characters among them.
For African-Americans, it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that Mr. Obama’s race plays at least some part in the seemingly irrational hatred and fear and disrespect he engenders on the right. Yes, Bill Clinton was called everything from a bum to a murderer by his conservative opponents (and impeached, to boot.) But that imaginary “first black president” never had a reporter, or a congressman, yell at him in the middle of a televised address, and his supporters never had to demand that a basic and decent respect for the office of president be applied to the man at the nation’s helm.
This time, most conservative journalists joined mainstream reporters in slamming Munro for unprecedented rudeness. But Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson released the following statement defending his reporter’s outburst:
“I don’t remember Diane Sawyer scolding her colleague Sam Donaldson for heckling President Reagan. And she shouldn’t have. A reporter’s job is to ask questions and get answers. Our job is to find out what the federal government is up to. Politicians often don’t want to tell us. A good reporter gets the story. We’re proud of Neil Munro.”
Not so fast, Tucker. As most people recall, Donaldson shouted his questions as Reagan was smiling and waving his way into and out of Air Force One, or as he walked into the White House, not in the middle of his speeches. And no president has been interrupted during a speech from the Rose Garden. To be fair, Carlson is the guy who called for NFL star turned dog fighting defendant Michael Vick to be put to death, so we really don’t expect much in the way of decorum from him, particularly given that his website is more along the lines of the late Andrew Breitbart’s online enterprise than the Washington Post or even the Wall Street Journal.
Daily Caller publisher Neil Patel also took a crack at explaining Munro’s behavior:
“The President today announced a very controversial policy and does not want to answer tough questions about it. Neil Munro is a veteran Washington reporter who today tried his best to time his question to be first as the President was wrapping up his remarks. He in no way meant to heckle the President of the United States.
And yet, heckle he did.