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{"id":2137,"date":"2013-01-29T17:09:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T17:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/01\/did-he-or-did-he-not-heckle.html"},"modified":"2013-01-29T17:09:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T17:09:00","slug":"did-he-or-did-he-not-heckle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2013\/01\/did-he-or-did-he-not-heckle.html","title":{"rendered":"Did he or did he not heckle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Now it gets a little thorny. \u00a0That doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019ll agree with him. Maybe I will, maybe not. \u00a0Just as I wouldn\u2019t automatically agree with anyone on the basis that they have suffered the\u00a0insufferable\u00a0 \u00a0That merely means I will listen, take into consideration the unspeakable pain and anguish he has suffered, and try to assess what is the best course of action. \u00a0I know, that can get you in trouble. \u00a0Way back in my getting banned from the Huffpost days, I dared point out that at least a couple of the ladies known as the 9\/11 widows appeared to be drifting from message, and using their status as 9\/11 widows as leverage against anyone who disagreed with their growing number of political\u00a0opinions, many of which had\u00a0absolutely\u00a0nothing to do with 9\/11. \u00a0Call me a suffering realist. <\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing, even if I disagree with someone, I\u2019m going to be damn sure to take into consideration what he\u2019s or she has gone through. I\u2019ll try to be\u00a0respectful,\u00a0 kind, and not do anything to ad an iota to the hurt they must live with the rest of their life. \u00a0So I was somewhat shocked to hear someone could be so insensitive as to heckled him during testimony, especially since he referenced his own unimaginable loss. \u00a0No, I didn\u2019t run with it and try to pin the heckler on the gun owner, suggesting however subtly that this is what them gun clingers are all about, and it shows how evil the NRA is (how the NRA got dragged into it, I don\u2019t know). \u00a0But I admitted it was a rotten way to go about debate.<\/p>\n

Until I read this link<\/a>. \u00a0This suggests\u00a0that\u00a0\u2013 and you might want to sit down for this \u2013 MSNBC, which has been the main source of this story, might just have (wait for it) fudged the story a bit. \u00a0It may not have been heckling at all. \u00a0It looks like Mr. Heslin asked a question, and after waiting, someone in the audience answered. \u00a0Perhaps Mr. Heslin thought it was a rhetorical question, but if the transcript is accurate, he may well have been asking a valid question. \u00a0One that was not answered by anyone in Congress, that someone\u00a0in\u00a0the gallery then felt obliged to answer.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, then this has been much ado about nothing. \u00a0Or worse, and outright\u00a0exploitative\u00a0lie on the media\u2019s part designed to take advantage of a grieving father while simultaneously\u00a0misrepresenting\u00a0a person (and by extension, and entire side of the debate). \u00a0A little lesson about believing venues such as MSNBC, who is now jumping on the legalize drugs bandwagon, using the gun debate to say that everything won\u2019t matter as long as we have the war on drugs, since it turns out that is the biggest cause of gun\u00a0violence\u00a0in our country. \u00a0I don\u2019t know. \u00a0I know I trust MSNBC slightly less than FOX News. \u00a0I also know that if I ran with the above story, and it turns out to be false, especially if I tried to link a lone non-heckler to them evil NRA types, I might be inclined to own up and recant my statements and even go so far as apologize. \u00a0But that\u2019s me.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"