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Crowd Laughs When Congressman Is Asked: Who's Going To Shoot Obama?
Categories: National News, Politics
10:44 am
February 25, 2011
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by Mark Memmott
From Georgia, the Athens Banner-Herald reports that at a town hall meeting Tuesday night Republican Rep. Paul Broun was asked by a person in the audience when — or who, depending on the person doing the reporting — someone is going to shoot President Obama.
Two things about what happened next stand out:
— The question "got a big laugh," the newspaper reports.
— Broun, his press secretary confirmed, moved on. "Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on," spokeswoman Jessica Morris told the Banner-Herald.
He responded this way, according to the newspaper:
"The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare."
As Politico says, Broun "didn't come anywhere near condemning the question in his response."
Broun, a doctor, was first elected to Congress in July 2007.
The Washington Post's Plum Line blog says the Secret Service has spoken with the person who asked the question, and determined that "he or she was an 'elderly person' who now regrets making a bad joke."





Niall Carter says, "An elderly person making a bad joke? Yeah, that I can understand, because most of the elderly still come from the days when they could lynch blacks without fear of reprisal, but still, since the rest of the crowd, who obviously think that it's OK to talk about shooting our leader, well, that means that we have to ask ourselves, as Americans, this question:

"Is this the country that we want to live in?"


And John Steppenwolf replies, "The answer should be, from any reasonable American, would be, 'No. And that's why I'm going to work to make it better.'"