A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Former Democratic governor of Maryland Martin O’Malley wants to be President. But why should anyone rely on him to defend Americans and America when he won’t even defend himself for speaking the truth?
O’Malley was halfway through his prepared remarks at the annual Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix, AZ, on Saturday, when dozens of foulmouthed thugs executing a well-planned ambush burst into the meeting hall:
“Black lives matter! Black lives matter!” they shouted toward O’Malley, and began a call-and-repeat rallying cry that activists have been using in the wake of the death of 28-year-old Sandra Bland, who died in police custody last week. “If I die in police in custody!” one of the chants went, “Burn everything down! That’s the only way mother******* like you listen!”
Conference organizers begged them to allow O’Malley to respond.
“I think all of us as Americans have a responsibility to recognize the pain and the grief throughout our country from all of the lives that have been lost to violence, whether that’s violence at the hands at the police or whether that’s violence at the hands of civilians,” O’Malley said, before being interrupted again.
“Don’t generalize this s***!” one person shouted back.
O’Malley said he wanted to require police departments to report all police-involved shootings and brutality complaints and he called on departments to implement civilian review boards. He vowed to release a wide-ranging plan on criminal justice reform.
The demonstrators started shouting and booing again when O’Malley said: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.”
O’Malley later apologized for the remarks, telling This Week in Blackness, a digital news site, that he “meant no disrespect” to the black community.
“That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect,” O’Malley told the outlet. “I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”
And when he stepped off stage, he chanted, “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!”
What utterly poltroonish behavior. O’Malley spoke the truth, then failed to defend it when confronted by belligerent zealots who crashed the party and abused the guests. The zealots should have been evicted — if necessary in handcuffs and at gunpoint. O’Malley should have defended the truth of his remarks and held his ground. But because he can’t abide the criticism of people of color, he abased himself, begging the forgiveness of his abusers for telling them the truth.
After that, who will trust O’Malley to negotiate with Iran, or stare down threats from terrorists?
Equally disturbing, opinion leaders in the Democratic party are hailing the disrupters of Netroots as heroes who taught Sanders and O’Malley a lesson in humility and the need to genuflect to righteous and intolerant advocates who practice bullyboy politics. Here’s Nancy LeTourneau, the part time blogger at Washington Monthly who never abjures an opportunity to adversely comment on advocacy of single-payer health care, and who is proudly on board the Hillary express:
To the extent that Hillary listens to the diverse members of her staff, she is unlikely to make the same mistakes that Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders did yesterday in response to challenges from people involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. They will tell her things like: saying “all lives matter” is “perceived as erasure rather than inclusion” and that tackling the issue of income inequality is a necessary but insufficient way to address structural racism.
Like it or not, this presidential campaign is going to require candidates to deal with the issues that are important to people of color, and white people inherently have blind spots in those areas.
LeTourneau believes white people are born clueless on matters of race, and cannot be cured of their cluelessness. Ergo, they must defer to people of color on matters of race. She believes the disrupters of Netroots have the right to a veto on the thoughts and statements of not just white voters and candidates, but of all white people. In her upside-down world, the thugs who disrupted Netroots were heroes who administered justice. In the real world, they are just angry, impatient people who lack faith in the power of their ideas, and in their verbal powers, and therefore choose to prevail through intimidation.
Repeats of the thuggery at Netroots will anger voters, most of whom loath such exercises in incivility. It won’t take much more of this to convince voters that the Democratic Party and its candidates have lost their moral compass and backbone. Voters want a President who knows moral right from wrong, who does not flinch in the face of adversity, and who vigorously defends himself and his nation.
Martin O’Malley is not that man. He flinched, then apologized for speaking the truth that “All lives matter.”. Bernie Sanders stood his ground. And Hillary Clinton, who was booed at the 2007 Netroots gathering, demonstrated her courage by raising money in Arkansas, 1,100 miles away.