Posted on 08/06/2008 3:17:43 PM PDT by SmithL
The staff of Congressman Steve Cohen called police to his home today after an argument with an Armenian-American activist in town from California ended with Cohen physically pushing him out the side door.
Peter Musurlian, a documentary producer for Globalist Films in Glendale, Calif., followed a reporter from The Commercial Appeal into Cohen’s Overton Park home, where the Congressman had invited local media to respond to a commercial from Nikki Tinker, his 9th Congressional District opponent in Thursday’s Democratic Primary, that Cohen called “more mudslinging.”
When members of Cohen’s staff realized who the cameraman was – Cohen said Musurlian followed him around at Tuesday night events “harassing me” – they told him he was not invited and asked him to leave.
Musurlian refused, saying he deserved a place in the press conference, and continued arguing before Cohen got off his couch to intervene.
“You come outside, I’m going to talk to you," Cohen said. "I’ll give you an interview.” When Musurlian retreated to the threshold, Cohen put both hands on Musurlian’s arms, forced him from the house and shut the door.
“Out of here,” Cohen said. “Out of here. Get out of my house.”
Cohen’s staff retrieved a tripod and a bag containing audio equipment and returned it to Musurlian, who later said an expensive part had been broken. Musurlian stood across the street from the house and eventually gave statements to the media and to police.
Cohen also talked to police and said he had no intention of pressing charges. Musurlian said he intended to press charges because of the damage to his equipment.
Armenian-Americans from around the country have been enraged at Cohen for his part in stopping Congress from passing a resolution last year that would have condemned Turkey for committing genocide against Armenians when the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating during and after World War I.
Armenian-Americans have donated between $25,000 and $30,000 to Tinker’s campaign and are actively working to defeat Cohen.
Cohen has often spoken of his pride in stopping the resolution, saying that during his Congressional trip to the Middle East that he specifically asked Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, about the ramifications of passing a resolution that Turkey vowed would cause it to cut off all aid to the U.S. effort in Iraq.
“I’m proud of what I did,” Cohen said. “Gen. Petraeus, when I went to Baghdad, I asked him what his position was on the Armenian resolution and he said, ‘I am glad you brought that up. That would be very devastating to our troops.’ The Turks are our friends in NATO, they allow 8,000 trucks a day through Turkey into Iraq to serve our troops with supplies and needs. Those trucks could be stopped and the Turks are very serious about that. They allow us to use our airbase.
“’He said, ‘That would be really devastating to our mission.’ While I am against the mission of the Iraq war, I am for protecting our troops. And to pass that resolution would have been irresponsible and the Congress saw that. President Carter and President Clinton both opposed it because they said we shouldn’t be doing that to upset the Turks.
“Determining what happened in history when it is a foreign nation and something we had nothing to do with is not the job of the United States Congress. It’s a job for historians. The bottom line is at this time in 2007 and 2008 and possibly in 2009 it is the last thing to throw in the face of one of our few allies in the Middle East.”
Musurlian attempted to give Memphis media a history lesson about what many historians have declared a genocide but which Turkey maintains was a much more complicated set of events unleashed by the world war and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
“This is a particular issue that I know maybe 50 people in Memphis are interested in but they should be interested in it,” Musurlian said. “It may sound ancient, but it’s not as ancient as slavery.”
That seemed to be an allusion to the resolution Cohen did usher through Congress last week, with the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time apologizing to African-Americans for slavery and Jim Crow oppression and degradation.
Cohen had called the press conference to explain his vote in 1997, while in the State Senate, against a bill called the “Tennessee Student Religious Liberty Act” that a Tinker ad said shows that Cohen “is the only Congressman that doesn’t think our kids should be allowed to pray in schools.”
Cohen said today he unequivocally does not oppose prayer in schools, but that he opposed that bill because it was meaningless pandering.
“They gave that bill a nice title to make it sound good, but I am just repulsed by people who will use religion to foster their political reputations and careers,” Cohen said. “I voted it because it was a) unnecessary, b) trying to use religion on a false manner deluding the people to make them think they were doing something when they were not doing anything.”
And Cohen sounded a theme heard often over the years in Memphis, accusing “outsiders” of meddling
“He needs to go back to California, EMILY’s List needs to go back to Washington and New York, and the people who are doing these ads from Washington, they need to go home too,” Cohen said. “Memphians will determine this election. And all these outsiders who don’t know Steve Cohen, they need to get out of here.”
Ping
I don’t know who the good guys are here but people should have the right to physically remove people from their home if they won’t leave when asked.
I’m with him- democrap or republican- if you ask someone to leave your home they should
If it was a press conference at a public venue the schmuck might have a leg to stand on. But not a private home.
If you’re in a man’s home and he tells you to leave, you leave or you take the consequences.
Eff the Turks. THEY ARE NOT OUR FRIENDS!
Remember in the beginning of the Liberation of Iraq? They refused to allow us to use OUR bases as staging areas. How many Americans died because of these shifty b@$tards.
Eff 'em, and the donkeys they ride on....
There are a couple of states where you can tell someone to leave your house and if they don’t go, then you pull out your gun and blow their head off.
Amen! When a person makes a general invite into his house — say a real estate open house, or a meeting with citizens in one’s own home, or a press conference in home — that invite is conditioned upon civil behavior. Go beyond the bounds of civility and the you remove yourself from that invite. The visitor was rude the previous evening and when asked to leave confrontational rather than respectful. Had he respectfully apologized for his prior behavior and respectfully asked to stay — I bet the outcome would have been different.
Webb (Virginia) might have shot him. ;^)
You may have to select the cache version in google.
So Armenia and the Armenian diaspora have donated money to our Congress-critter wannabe to get legislation that benefits Armenia. Who the hell do they think they are? India? Mexicorruption?
Can't Armenia and the Armenian diaspora -- and Turkey for that matter -- take this home and straighten it out? We got enough problems!!
It’s so easy to remove an unwanted guest from your home in Texas. All you need to do is get the bodybag out of the closet before you get the heater. /h
I wonder what Cohen would say if Germany denied the Holocaust against the Jews and others? They are our allies, after all, and we do have bases there as well.
Not that I am condoning the “reporter’s” behavior.
Um, sure...
(TN DEMOCRAT STEVE COHEN INTERCEDES ON BEHALF OF FUTURE LITTLE ROCK ARK RECRUITING STATION SHOOTER A M MOHAMMED aka BLEDSOE , WHO IS THEN SPRUNG FROM YEMENI JAIL) The jihadist, back from Yemen I have learned from a well-placed source that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed one soldier and wounded another at a a Little Rock military recruiting center today, and who faces charges of terrorism as well as first-degree murder, has recently returned from Yemen, where he studied jihad with an Islamic scholar there. Apparently the Islamic scholar under whom this American convert to Islam studied was yet another misunderstander of Islam's true, peaceful teachings. More on this as it develops.-----Arkansas recruiting center jihadist killer studied jihad in Yemen Jihad Watch ^ | 6/1/2009
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