re: Verbal confrontation between GOP politician and Oregon reporter

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A politician running for an office where he will have an insane amount of control over people's lives

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This is simply not accurate.

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It harms the politician in no way.

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He loses a potential endorsement and guarantees that that particular outlet will do nothing but run his name in the mud.

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So what does the politician do when confronted with something he doesn't like?

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He spotted a reporter being extremely disrespectful to his OPPONENT. What world are you living in right now?

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He feels insulted and feels like he is losing control of the situation because God forbid the politician doesn't have control over something as trivial as someone else's notes.

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When someone is being a little shite like writing "blah blah blah" as notes for a candidate that is not in the room, he should get called out on it.

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So what does he do when he doesn't have total control?

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Has absolutely nothing to do with control. How fricking short sided can you be?

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This thread was started with the hopes that other posters would watch the video and twist his pathetic hissy fit into some heroic moral stand against the press.

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It was started to show what pieces of shite human beings work at that outlet, it it has done just that.

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And people are going to vote for this guy to take control of their lives and the lives of others.

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You do realize, no matter how much Obama wishes it were, that this country is not a totalitarian state, right?


Why do I have a feeling that you would be singing a completely different tune the parties were switched?

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i am a professional antagonizer and a former expert troll, and i'll say again, holy shite

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gatorhata9

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Well said

Okay, instead of relying on the two minute video clip linked in the OP, I decided to watch the entire 1 hour and 41 minute meeting.

1.) For perspective, Dr. Monica Wehby (seated at the table) and State Rep. Jason Conger (the gentleman with glasses at the far right) are by far the two principal candidates. One or the other will be announced on May 20th as the winner of the Republican primary for the Senate seat in Oregon now held by Dem. Jeff Merkley.

2.) A relatively short time before the subject clip's events transpired, Tim Crawley (the guy at the end of the table/top of the screenshot, who, by the way arrived almost 6 minutes late to the interviews), NOT Mark Callahan, interrupted the process to complain about the lack of time being given to the three minor candidates. He did this after 23 consecutive minutes of only frontrunners Wehby and Conger speaking. Right after Crawley said he had "better things to do with my time" than be sitting there unable to say anything. that's when Callahan echoed his sentiments, a bit more strongly than Crawley had, and that was apparently "strike one". Then the candidate on the phone, Jo Rae Perkins, also protested she had not been given a chance to answer a previous question. So at that point, three of the five were already pissed off about being ignored. And that brings you up to the point where the clip in the OP begins.

3.) This editorial staff on this weekly "alternative" paper are clearly quite liberal and Callahan, through prior answers, had already established himself as the most far right of the five candidates and thus already on their shite list for the day. They grilled him in depth about his background far more than any of the other four.

4.) The paper endorsed Sen. Merkley in the Democratic primary and quite predictably endorsed Conger (the guy with glasses) after this interview., even though Dr. Wehby , via her answers, came across as easily the most moderate of the five, and thus the closest (relatively speaking, of course), to their liberal views. Despite that, they frequently challenged Wehby, while giving a free pass on every answer to the clearly more-conservative (and wishy-washy in his answers) Conger.

5.) So why did they end up endorsing a guy who was much further away from their own views than Dr. Wehby? The answer is easy. Polls show that Wehby, by virtue of being a moderate in Oregon, is a much bigger threat in November to Democrat Merkley than Conger would be. Wehby and Conger are running a relatively close 1-2 right now for the Republican nomination.

6. Though they did not endorse Conger until April 30th, one day after the final date for voters to switch party affiliation, they did post the full interview on their website on April 22nd, three days before the deadline. They endorsed Conger to help get out the more conservative vote against Wehby in her own party, and likely hoped a few Dems or Independents would register as Republicans for the primary to help defeat Wehby, thus keeping the strongest challenger to Merkley out of the November general election. Granted, as a weekly paper published on Wednesdays, they could conceivably had got the endorsement into the April 23rd edition. But even casting aside the speculation of hoping to change a few party registrations to allow more anti-Wehby votes for Conger, that does not at all weaken the case that they endorsed Conger solely to help eliminate the Republicans' best chance to unseat Merkley. From the opening paragraph of their own endorsement, "Of the two major candidates in this race, we probably agree on more issues with Dr. Monica Wehby, a pediatric neurosurgeon from Portland, than we do with state Rep. Jason Conger (R-Bend), a business lawyer. "

7. And now you know the rest of the story ....