Nancy Pelosi, the liberal House speaker, is heckled by liberals
The celebrated San Francisco liberal took the stage to greet what should have been a friendly audience: the annual gathering of progressive activists organized by the Campaign for America's Future.
Instead, Pelosi was eaten by her own.
Just three minutes into her speech -- right after she gave the triumphant news that "Change is here!" -- two men stood up and spread out a large pink banner in front of the podium demanding "Stop Funding Israel Terror."
At that moment, a wheelchair-bound woman named Carrie James began to scream from her table about 30 feet away: "I am not going to a nursing home!" At that cue, about 15 people in the crowd -- who, like James, wore orange T-shirts demanding "Community Choice Act Now" -- unfurled bedsheet banners and struck up a chant: "Our homes, not nursing homes!"
Bodyguards rushed forward and formed a six-person ring around Pelosi and the lectern. Leaders of the conference tried to take the speaker backstage until the disturbance could be quelled, but she brushed them off: "I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving," she said. "You have made your point. I'm going to give my speech over your voices."
And she did, for an excruciating half-hour. The hecklers screamed themselves hoarse, dominating Pelosi's speech through her concluding lines: "I want to say thank you to Campaign for America's Future for your relentlessness, for your dissatisfaction, for your impatience. That's what I see every day in my district."
Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/08/AR2010060804327.html
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