Nothing has been written on this incident that happened at the YearlyKos Convention on Friday morning, either on the DailyKos website or, to my knowledge, in any of the MSM coverage, and that is unfortunate, because it's all over the right wing blogs right now, and the situation should be explained correctly.
The incident in question happened in the Grand Ballroom session immediately following Wesley Clark's morning keynote address. The session was titled "The Military and Progressives -- Are They Really That Different?", and the incident happened at the very end of the session. You can see a video of the incident here at Pajamas Media, reported pretty reliably by their reporter, and then twisted and contorted by the usual suspects in the right wing blogs.
I attended the session and would like to tell you what really happened...
The panel itself was moderated by Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org and featured, among others, General Clark and two Iraqi War veterans who are running for congressional seats. The panel discussion generally concerned how the Progressive movement should be seen as serving the best interests of the military, despite the long-standing assumptions to the contrary.
After the prepared statements, the discussion opened up for Q&A, and this is where the controversy begins. I can report the following because I was in the room at the time, serving as a volunteer mike marshall, which is a fairly glorious title for the simple task of trying to ensure that audience questioners be brief. So I was aware of the time remaining during the session and the flow of questions that were being put to the panel.
There were two mikes open in the auditorium for questioners to line up at for Q&A. I was monitoring the right-side mike and another volunteer, Luke, was monitoring the mike on the left. As they always do, audience members lined up for their questions, but there was very limited time for it. The session was only one hour long, and after the prepared comments were completed, maybe 10 minutes were left for Q&A.
Waiting in line on the other mike was a gentleman in full dress military uniform, a sergeant. I was fairly enthused at the idea of an active duty soldier at the convention, and I looked forward to his question. But time was waning, and as the people in front of him asked their questions, it appeared that he would not have the time to ask his question.
I should point out that the carpet was not pulled from under him just as he was at the mike. The timing of these sessions is controlled by the union crew running the technical side of the show, and the stage manager was clearly signalling the moderator that there was no time left. I know this because I was actually silently rooting that there would be time left for the sergeant to ask his question, and was a bit disappointed that he could not.
Soltz wound down the panel and thanked his guests, and the sergeant began speaking at the mike. Soltz then addressed him directly, and it was clear that Soltz suspected that the sergeant's motives were political in nature. Then they engaged in the dialogue that you see on the video. Soltz warned him that if the sergeant uttered anything of a political nature, there would be consequences.
During the panel discussion, the participants made particular emphasis of the point that they were not permitted to make any public statements of a political nature while they were in the uniform. They actually discussed the frustrations of this limitation on their right of free speech, but they observed the military code and kept their counsel until after they were discharged. Soltz was clearly determined that this sergeant would observe that code here.
I'm sure that the floor mike was dead, not because he was cut off or censored, but because the panel was now over and the sound man had turned off the mike. That's what they do -- they don't want live mikes in the audience between sessions. There was certainly no request from the moderator to do so. In no way was this man censored, and such an accusation is perfectly nonsensical since, as you can tell from the PJM video, the sergeant made his statement in full, speaking far longer without interruption than any of the other questioners.
His statement itself began with a rather bizarre assertion that he would not let anyone say anything bad about the audience. This was utterly bewildering because no one on the panel said anything the least bit critical about the audience, who were lapping up everything the panel said with delight. It seems to have been a rather ham-handed attempt to curry audience favor, but it fell flat. I personally then wondered if the man was stable.
He then read a passage from the Army Leadership Manual, the relevance of which utterly defied me at the time, and upon repeated viewing still escapes me.
His ultimate point seems to be that since the surge in Iraq started, Iraqi casualties have dropped. He brandished this point as if he had just pulled Excalibur from the stone, and dared anyone on the panel to prove otherwise. This particular issue had not been discussed one way or the other, nor even casually alluded to, during the panel. The sergeant did not put this information into a larger context or make a larger point, he only pointed out that piece of information and said nothing more. I had no idea what point he was trying to make nor how he was attempting to argue against any of the issues discussed during the panel.
One of the panelists, Jon Powers, actually began to address the sergeant's statement, but immediately Soltz, who happened to be his old CO, told him to stand down, which is a moment I found extraordinary. I met Jon Powers the day before at another session. He is running for Tom Reynolds' Congressional seat in Upstate New York, and is a very impressive gentleman, but military roles die hard even in civilian life, and Powers immediately deferred to Soltz. Soltz then thanked the panel and the audience and brusquely left the stage.
General Clark proceeded to make a rather diplomatic comment from the stage, perfectly fitting for a man that many think will be the next Secretary of State.
I strongly urge you to watch the PJM video and decide for yourself about the sergeant. The last few minutes of the video are PJM's interview with him, and appear to be generally uncut. To me, this guy doesn't sound too coherent, nor are his motives clear. He concedes that he is probably breaking the rules.
There is a discussion in the righty blogs questioning whether or not the sergeant was breaking a law. He is not on active duty, but in the reserves, so that calls to question the propriety of his being in the uniform at all. Whether or not he was breaking the rules of military conduct, he was not a registered attendant of the convention, which was not open to the public, and so he was certainly trespassing.