I was pleased to see how Reagan dealt with the interruptions of hecklers, but I didn’t notice anything magical or out of the ordinary. This is at least the fifth time this week someone has brought up how ‘Reagan did it’. The hecklers in those days were not nearly as violent or as likely to be supported and lionized by the main stream media. That condition, too has been changed.
hecklers are worse today? How so?
It will escalate if Bill Ayers has taught his students well, but just yelling or “heckling” is still heckling. As much as DT loves being in the middle of things, he does need to keep people in front of him. I wonder if he is taking the advice of his protection detail or if he is only listening to himself.
“The hecklers in those days were not nearly as violent or as likely to be supported and lionized by the main stream media. That condition, too has been changed.”
You do not remember those days well. There were PLENTY of “hecklers” who played rough. How about the guy at Augusta who held hostages in the pro shop until Reagan spoke to him? Or another guy named Hinckley?
This was my favorite. Especially the last line:
WASHINGTON, April 13— President Reagan, addressing 10,000 fundamentalist Christians, was suddenly heckled tonight by a score of people shouting, ‘’Bread, not bombs!’’
The outburst occurred as Mr. Reagan spoke to delegates to the Baptist Fundamentalism ‘84 Convention at the D.C. Convention Center.
Mr. Reagan had to stop reading to the crowd from a letter written by a Marine chaplain in Beirut when the demonstration began. He looked up at the intruders off to his right in their far seats and drew cheers from the audience when he declared: ‘’Wouldn’t it be nice if a little bit of that Marine spirit would rub off and they would listen.’’
A man in the audience charged into the shouting group, pushing one to the floor, and the crowd cheered. The hecklers kept shouting: ‘’Bread, not bombs!’’ as convention workers ushered them out. ‘I Think They’re Leaving’
‘’I’ve got more decibels at work for me than they have,’’ Mr. Reagan declared, bringing more cheers from the crowd.
As the hecklers were carried from the building, one with his mouth muffled, Mr. Reagan dryly observed, ‘’I think they’re leaving.’’
One time Reagan was interrupted by some punks chanting “Heil Hitler!”. Reagan looked up and said, “I take pride in my generation. Without my generation you kids would be saying, ‘Heil Hitler’ for real.” I could hardly wait for the nightly news to hear what he had said that day