Tea Party Protester Sorry For Mocking Man with Parkinson's
The protester at an anti-health care reform rally who yelled and threw money at a pro-reform advocate with Parkinson's disease has apologized for his "shameful" actions and blamed them on impulse.
"I snapped. I absolutely snapped and I can't explain it any other way," Chris Reichert told the Columbus Dispatch. "He's got every right to do what he did and some may say I did too, but what I did was shameful."
The man Reichert verbally abused, Robert A. Letcher, 60, is seen in the video sitting on the ground as Tea Party activists demonstrate in front of him. He is holding up a sign that reads, "Got Parkinson's? I do and you might. Thanks for your help."
After one man in the crowd starts mocking Letcher, Reichert steps out of the crowd, throwing money in Letcher's face, and mockingly shouts, "No, no I'll pay for this guy. Here you go, start a pot. I'll pay for you." He then yells, "I'll decide when to give you money...No more handouts," and again throws money at him. In the background, shouts of "Communist" can be heard. (This section begins about 50 seconds into the above video.)
Letcher is a former nuclear scientist with a doctorate from Cornell University. He told Talking Points Memo that he been on disability since 2005 but was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2000. His last job was teaching science and technology policy at Ohio State.
"I feel I embody the controversy that was being fought out," Letcher said. "No one was engaging, everyone was screaming. I thought, I don't have to scream, I just have to be there. I walked over and sat down ... I sort of presented myself as an argument by myself." He said the writing on his sign was not as clear as he would like because his disease impairs his motor skills.
The video of the confrontation went viral on the Internet, with many who watched it harshly condemning Reichert and the other protesters who mocked Letcher. The Dispatch reported that Reichert has become fearful for his family after threatening comments surfaced online.
"I've been looking at the web sites," he said. "People are hunting for me."
Reichert, who initially denied that he was the man in the video, expressed his deep guilt about the confrontation and tried to amend his actions. "I made a donation (to a local Parkinson's disease group) and that starts the healing process," Reichert told the Dispatch. "That was my first time at any political rally and I'm never going to another one."
The demonstration took place just days before the House voted on health-care reform legislation. Hundreds of protesters, both for and against the bill, rallied outside the office of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, a Democrat from Ohio.
Kilroy condemned the incident and brought it up during the House floor speech last Thursday.
"Unfortunately, some of those opposing health-care reform went too far. Instead of making their arguments against the bill, they engaged in abusive language directed at one of my constituents who suffers from the terrible ravages of Parkinson's disease," she said.
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When I first saw the headline I was shocked. I watched the video and I can say I believe the man just got a little too emotionally riled up in the situation. I do not think anyone from either side should allow themselves to get that close to each other.
I am a supporter for your new health care bill but I DO NOT think making this man a scapegoat is going to help.
I'm from Canada and most of us are baffled as to why there is opposition to this bill. No system is perfect but it's a good start in thee right direction. I was worth 1.5 million 10 years ago, now my family's net worth is some old furniture in a house (that we RENT), and 2 cars and NO CREDIT. I have no savings left and I cannot work. My wife is the bread winner now with a salary (half the average salary for a Canadian). But I do have is health care that is paying for my sessions with the doctors and the pills I need ($1500/month). And these costs are just going to up higher over time.
Why not assemble some groups of individual Americans from both sides and send them to
other countries and have your town hall meetings there. Try to learn from there successes and failures. My god, you finally have a President willing to risk his career to do the right thing. Both sides must agree that the system is broke. Be part of the solution, not the problem.
As "W" would say, "Your with us or your against us".
I'm ashamed of our political leaders, on BOTH sides, for fanning the flames of people's fears and hatred, rather than setting an example of calm, intelligent, productive debate/discussion.
We seem to have forgotten that we are all on the same team. Certainly we will have different opinions about things, but we need to keep our emotions under check.
The money throwing antics were eerily similar to how Irish, Polish and Italian Catholics and German and Scandinavian Lutherans used to throw pennies at Jewish kids back in the 1940s and 1950s in Boston, NYC, Chicago and the Midwest; despicable.
His apology is nothing but CYA. I hope Robert Letcher sues both Reichert personally and whomever sponsored or organized that particular rally. Personally, I think Reitchert should just be shot to
the base of the brain or the eye with a .22 and his corpse dumped in front of the local tea tarty HQ or the house of the main leader of the
Columbus, OH party; a rat stuffed in his mouth.
Here is the truth about this "grassroots movement."
The Tea Party is the ultimate astroturf movement, funded by FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity and was conceived in August 2008, well before the election; contingency plan in case Obama was elected.
Zack Christenson, a producer for Chicago neo-con radio host Milt Rosenberg, registered first tea party domain name ChicagoTeaParty.com, which activated just after Rick Santelli?s PR stunt on CNBC, which coincided with the fact that Santelli's contract was coming due for either renewal or release; stunt to gain upper hand in contract renewal negotiations.
Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/st...
http://whois.domaintools.co...
Another player in the Tea Party movement is Eric Odom and dontGo, another outfit with ties to Koch Industries:
http://www.theatlantic.com/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
FreedomWorks is headed by former GOP congressman Dick Armey and receives funding from the health insurance and pharmaecutical industries and has received funding from the far right Scaife family (who helped push some of the more outlandish Clinton rumors in the 1990s).
Americans For Prosperity is funded mainly by Koch Industries, the largest privately owned corporation in U.S; oil/gas exploration; chemicals and financial services. The father of Koch Industries, Fred Koch, was a founder and leader of the ultra right John Birch Society and his sons are key financiers of the Tea Parties.
Source: http://www.boston.com/bostongl...
The Tea Parties are simply extensions of the more conservative branch of the GOP. Caribou Barbie blasted so-called death panels and said healthcare reform would kill disabled people yet has said nothing about the Columbus incident. So, she simply was (again) using her baby as a blunt instrument to further her own ends AND as a shield against criticism of her distortions and lies. The Tea Partiers are simply a real world version of the New World in the movie COBRA; blade wielding fascists wishing to nullify the popular decision of the public in 2008. To paraphrase the movie's protagonist, Marion Cobretti (Sly Stallone), the Tea Party is a disease. Still waiting for the cure (I think if state police or state National Guardsmen swung a few batons on the tea partiers or fired even some blanks into the crowd, they would run like the cowardly punks they are).
The Tea Party?s goal is simply to revive and perpetuate Bush and Reagan economic policy-tax cuts for the rich and deregulation for corporations. Yet, when these free market fundamentalists fail i.e. S&L, the housing and banking crsis, the insider trading scandals of the 1980s or accounting fraud of Enron and WorldCom, we the middle class taxpayers end up having to save everyone, including the screwups i.e. Keating, Milken, the Wall Street boys. The corporate bailouts were initiated by Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and that was because they allowed the situation to get so dire rather than respond in late 2007, when the first wave of sub-prime defaults and value deflation started to occur. Many say Obama should have allowed GM to fail. Very nice in theory but not so nice in brass tacks, especially amidst a severe recession.
As for helthcare reform, Obama erred but it was in watering reform down from the get go; negotiating with insurers and pharmaceuticals and taking the public option off the table and going for the Big Insurance/Big Pharma premium rake off bill.
I hope the Tea Party oversteps it line and has its own Kent State. When they do, just like the radicals of the late 1960s and early 1970s, most will give up on "revolution" ; return to whatever hole they crawled out of. They are nothing more than the losers of the last election who cannot deal with the core fact that THEY LOST! That's that