"The Audience Booed"

Sometimes I’m just embarrassed by my own side. I don’t watch the Republican “debates” because the rhetoric is idiotic sloganeering, which Democrats never, ever do. Democrats are always the epitome of the voice of honesty, reason and sanity, and they never quote anything out of context or exaggerate the truth. Well, at least that’s what we claim.

There was a question posed regarding the repeal of DADT at the Republican “debate” last night, which was posed via video from a gay soldier in Iraq. About two members of the audience started to “boo” loudly at the end of the video question, and were almost immediately embarrassed into silence.

Left wing blogs and media are all steamed up about “The night that Republicans booed a soldier,” and writing about how “the audience booed a gay soldier.” Give me a break. About two morons in the theater began to display their idiotic bigotry, and they received absolutely no support from the audience, a fact which cowed them into immediate silence.

The same blogs and writers are also disparaging the “debaters” for not rebuking the “audience” for booing, but the proper response to isolated hecklers is to ignore them, which is precisely what the “debaters” did. Rick Santorum, to whom the question was addressed, did not “thank the soldier for his service,” which is apparently a major crime. Needless to say, his response to the question was utterly idiotic, which is to be expected and has been written about elsewhere, so I won’t bother to describe it.

At a previous “debate” the audience actually did cheer at the topic of executions in Texas. Although the reaction was blown a bit out of proportion, it certainly was not a “made up” issue. Now left wingers are watching the Republican dog and pony shows looking for issues, and they are finding things that do not exist.

And so the nonsense about describing the action of one or two hecklers as “audience response” is a dishonesty that should be addressed. Republicans provide plenty of accurate grist for the mill of honest criticism, and when we start using dishonesty and exaggeration to criticize them we weaken the legitimate case which we have.