Monday, May 22, 2017

"Tampa Mayor Buckhorn's joke about pointing machine guns at media draws fire"

Via Drudge: “Personally, I was appalled,” wrote Susan Katz Keating, a freelance writer and organization board member who was in the conference room Tuesday for Buckhorn’s keynote address. Katz Keading had guns pointed at her while covering unrest in Northern Ireland in 1988.

Buckhorn said his critics are being overly sensitive. “I think that is a silly reaction,” he said of those upset by a story he has told “a dozen times.”

But some journalists in the room said they weren’t being thin-skinned. No skin is thick enough to stop a bullet or bomb blast, something Daily Beast national security reporter Kim Dozier knows all too well.

In 2006, she was nearly killed in a car bombing that took the life of the U.S. Army officer her team was filming Capt. James Alex Funkhouser, along with his Iraqi translator and Dozier’s CBS colleagues Paul Douglas and James Brolan.

“As someone who had been under fire once or twice, and lost two colleagues to a car bomb in Iraq that nearly killed me, I didn’t appreciate the remarks,” said Dozier, who wrote a book about her experiences and efforts to recover. “The mayor probably didn’t realize how many of the reporters in the room had risked their lives to bring Americans the story of U.S. troops in the field, including veterans-turned-journalists with prior special ops service.”

(Link to more)

7 comments:

edutcher said...

Young Bonaparte mentioned something about a whiff of grapeshot.

So this is an honored tradition.

Considering how these morons fantasize about Dubya's and The Donald's deaths, they doth protest too much.

AllenS said...

Read the article, and it didn't say what party the mayor is from. Which usually means what?

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

ed, it was young Washington who said that too.

Leland said...

I don't know what happened. I wasn't there because I don't care. I'll just say this; interesting that not only did the reporters and their feelings become the story of a mayoral press conference, but even their antedotal stories of others bravery and sacrifice under fire became their story about themselves.

Chip Ahoy said...

Ha ha.

Reporters are not going to appreciate all the opprobrium coming their way. Their critical error is inserting themselves into the story.

And at this late point they're quite boring besides.

However...

Buckhorn Exchange is Denver's oldest restaurant. It's a few blocks from here. Walking distance if you've got legs. Let's go there. It's fun.

It has taxidermy animals all over the walls. ALL over.

They take everything out once a decade or so and fumigate the whole place. They did. Makes the papers because it's such a sight. They also got rid of a ton of stuff. Because it's all too much. Would you like to see it? This post has a lot of photos but half are other things. I end up there.

They cook wild game. That's why all the dead animals all over the place. You'd think that would make you loose your appetite and I suppose for many it does. So you can get something strange to eat there if you're in the mood and people usually are. So they have alligator or ostrich or frog legs or some such. But if not in the mood, then any steak is fine. It's a great steakhouse.

And their baked beans really are all that. Everyone asks for the recipe so they just printed it right on their paper menu. The trick is add something sweet and liquid smoke which is odd because being a steak house they have all that actual smoke billowing over the whole neighborhood.

Smack dab in the projects. An isolated brick building. Alona asked trepidatiously, "Where are you taking me?" A reasonable question. I can see that. In the darkness the parking lot just looks a bit like a rape scene. But then inside we couldn't tear her away. She went upstairs and stayed up there awhile and she loved everything about the place. Plus, their baby who cried the whole time they were here at my apartment and pampering it with isolation and silence to sleep, suddenly stopped being fussy inside the restaurant, stayed awake and quiet. The infant liked the noise of the place. The cacophony comforted the testy infant somehow.

And I'm all, SEE? SO YOU CAN STOP TELLING EVERYONE TO BE QUIET!

Cynicus said...

On the other hand, don't true gun enthusiasts say to treat every gun as though it were loaded. This seems pretty careless.

Leland said...

Ok, bad headline. That was less of a joke or press conference than a really dumb act. I understand the sentiment, but doing that with a real firearm is too far. I'm disappointed the Special Ops folks let him do it.