GOP Rep: Sure, Tea Partiers Were Rowdy, But So Was Michael Moore

An amusing, rubber-and-glue comment from Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) in a perceptive Glenn Thrush and Marin Cogan piece (one of several from the past 72 hours) about blowback from the tone of the GOP’s defeat on health care reform:

When the CodePinkers and [Michael] Moore et al. were up here, you should’ve heard some of the things they were saying. At any time there is a heated public debate, people say things they shouldn’t say. We don’t condone it. … It wasn’t appropriate then, and it wasn’t appropriate now.

For what it’s worth, while Code Pink activists were generally allowed to stay in committee rooms when they held up slogans and signs — making for amusing wire photos — they were regularly kicked out of the rooms when they made noise, as in this 2007 instance:

That’s a pretty far cry from this weekend’s Republican display that saw members holding up signs encouraging protesters outside of the Capitol, and even applauding a heckler who made it into the House gallery.