Posted on 09/17/2004 11:41:31 AM PDT by Jeff Blogworthy
Bush Sign Ripping Staged Posted by Josh Rhoderick 10:35 AM, Politics & Government
The story, according to Phil Parlock, goes like this:
A West Virginia man said yesterday that Democrats stole his family's Bush-Cheney campaign signs at an event featuring Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards.
"They just pounced on us," said Phil Parlock, who took his 11-year-old son, Alex, and 3-year-old daughter, Sophia, to the Democratic rally at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, W.Va.
"She was crying; they were pushing and shoving her," said Mr. Parlock, a Huntington real estate agent. "She was scared."
But there's more to it than that. Is it coincidental that this show of Democratic brutality happened in a swing state?
I'm no journalist, but through a trusted friend in West Virginia (whom we'll call Daisy), I've learned that Phil Parlock, in an attempt to aid Bush in the state, had the incident staged. As far as I know, Parlock's family knew nothing of it. It's also unclear whether or not the Bush campaign or any of its allied 527 groups were involved. It's possible that Parlock was acting of his own accord.
Daisy, who also lives in Huntington, knows Phil Parlock and his family and she made it clear that they were "very nice people." I asked her why she thought Parlock would do such a thing, she mentioned that Parlock is "very very Christian," "incredibly anti-gay," and a strong Bush supporter.
She also mentioned that Parlock, a real estate agent in West Virginia, has attempted to run for a seat on the Cabel County Board of Education on four separate occasions. She didn't elaborate. I'm guessing that she was trying to say that Parlock was hoping to get media attention as a Pro-Bush guy so his fifth and final run would be successful.
Apparently, Parlock planned to blame the attack on a local branch of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT). IUPAT had staged anti-war demonstrations outside of West Virginia Bush rallies in which Parlock and his family had been in attendance, and it was those demonstrations that inspired Parlock to stage an attack upon his daughter.
Daisy said, "I'm pretty sure he had two men at the airport, and both were from the Mission." She's referring to the Huntington City Mission, a local Christian charity group of which Parlock is a member.
Daisy refused to tell me how she knew this and she also refused to tell me how she knew Parlock (or how well). So it's possible that she's speaking on nothing but speculation.
It wouldn't surprise me if Parlock staged the attack on his own, but a few of the details don't quite add up, so I'm not ready to say that I believe Daisy (which will undoubtedly piss her off).
UPDATE:
A reader tipped me off to this. I'd say it's starting to add up now. Sorry I didn't believe you Daisy!
Truth is on our side.
Kerry and Edwards can kiss West Virginia goodbye.
Folks there don't like to see families treated this way.
I beg your pardon?
Oh, don't beg.
LOL, and what is the union going to do, retract their apology? This is so obviously the work of totally desperate, dispirited and suicide prone libs.
And it definitely put her family and neighbors at risk to! I mean look at what happened -- riots, mayhem, murders. All because of Rosa Parks!
Why didn't she consider the consequences! She wasn't just putting herself in harm's way.
Bad Rosa Parks!
Rosa Parks, if you remember, was an adult making adult decisions.
If you've gone to events where you've repeatedly been assaulted, you really think it's wise to bring your three-year-old with you to similar future events?
Use your freaking head a little. Leave the kid at home.
First, sure it seems melodramatic, but ... it isn't. Sometimes you have to put your own kids on the line with you. When? That's the rub. Here the father -- a good father, I'd think for his own kids have spoken well of him -- drew that line in one place. You, a distant observer, put that line in another. He lives in WV, you and I in the burbs of NYC, of Philly. His decision reflects his own knowledge of his local enviroment. I have no -- very little -- basis to second guess his decision.
And why should any of us? To do so diminshes from the one aspect of this event that needs to be commented on, that needs to bring on the outrage, to fire us up. And that is the action in public of union thugs and the miserable reaction of the rest of the crowd -- to bully, to assualt a little girl, to cheer on that despicable behaviour, to heckle the girl, to belittle her dad in fronty of her and her brother -- no matter how she and her family arrived there, and their peacable actions. Their actions were entirely peacable!
Bullies are bullies -- I know you know that -- they'll alaways find some excuse to bully. Thugs the same way. Until they are provoked and stood down, they are a constant danger to rest of us.
To my question, my hypothetical. If Rosa Parks -- by prophetic insight -- did foresee the damage her actions would bring on -- the deaths of four sweet little girls in a church among them, those four deaths alone, say -- should she have still done what she did?
What are you talking about? You're not making sense.
The reference to my "buddies" goes unexplained. The query into it is regarded as "begging".
Bizarre
Some people just think it would be macho to start a fist fight. That father's first priority was getting out of there safely with his little girl.
I'm glad the union apologized; now they need to take action against the aggressor. And if I were the dad, I'd demand action be taken against the union thug.
I was referring to another poster, with whom you sometimes engage in tag-team.
I am completely at a loss as to what you are referring to.
I guess you are not going to enlighten me, but I assure you, you are mistaken that I engage in "tag teams".
I am completely at a loss as to what you are referring to.
I guess you are not going to enlighten me, but I assure you, you are mistaken that I engage in "tag teams".
His decision reflects his own knowledge of his local enviroment. I have no -- very little -- basis to second guess his decision.
The liberals are animals in his local environment. Phil Parlock knows this through repeated first hand experience.
August 1996:
Phil Parlock's experience was less calm. The Huntington man said he was knocked to the ground by a Clinton supporter when he tried to display a sign that read "Remember Vince Foster," the deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in a Washington, D.C., park. His death has become the subject of much debate among Clinton opponents.
"It must have been a strict Democrat who did this," Parlock said, feeling the red abrasions on his face.
October 2000:
Phil Parlock didn't expect to need all 12 of the Bush-Cheney signs he and his son Louis smuggled in their socks and pockets into the rally for Vice President Al Gore. But each time they raised a sign, someone would grab it out of their hands, the two Huntington residents said. And sometimes it got physical.
Parlock and his son, clad in white button-down shirts and ties, took their place in front of the Capitol steps and waited. As the rally got going, they started raising their signs and people immediately began stealing them, Parlock said. "Three guys came up and squeezed me in and one grabbed my arms and pulled them down and another took the sign," Parlock said.
"Another guy came up and tried to grab the sign but I had a good hold of it and he stumbled and bumped into other people and started a ruckus," he said. Parlock said the police ejected the man from the rally. Parlock said a group of people wearing T-shirts and jackets with the United Mine Workers of America logo took away many of their signs...
As workers cleaned up the debris from the rally in front of the Capitol after the rally, Parlock sat next to a pile of ripped up Bush-Cheney signs he had collected. He said he thought the people who took his signs went too far.
So he knew there was a very strong possibility that union thugs and other assorted idiots would get violent with him and his two small children. And he brought them with him anyway. It’s just stupid.
To my question, my hypothetical. If Rosa Parks -- by prophetic insight -- did foresee the damage her actions would bring on -- the deaths of four sweet little girls in a church among them, those four deaths alone, say -- should she have still done what she did?
Rosa Parks is not responsible for thugs burning down a church with little girls in it. If Rosa Parks knew there was a very strong possibility that jerks were about to fire bomb that particular church, she would have been a fool to stick the little girls into the middle of the conflagration. Mr. Parlock KNEW that there was a possibility that these idiots would get violent.
Once again liberals prove themselves unaware of the principles of Occam's Razor. In order for this to be a setup, the following would have to have occured:
1. First, the father would have to be so abusive as to willfully make his daughter cry (and do whatever it takes to cause that). Possible, but there is no evidence that he is such a person, and being a "Christian" and "running for the school board four times" doesn't cut it.
2. Second, the father would have had to get someone to portray an IUPAT thug. If it wasn't a real member of IUPAT holding those sign pieces and smirking at the child, then the union would never in a million years have apologized.
3. The father would have had to arrange for the AP photographer to take that photo at just the right moment OR the father would have to have been extremely, extremely lucky. I mean, what a coincidence, that the AP was there and took that exact picture. Now, if the father had brought his OWN video camera (like the Protest Warriors), that might have lent more credence to this claim. Not much, but it would have been possible that the event was staged (although issue number 2 would still have to be resolved). But you're trying to tell me that he arranged for this to be staged but had no way of knowing if anyone would even know about it? He's not the one who publicized the picture, it was the AP through Yahoo!.
Note that this "article" provides NO evidence that this event was staged. It is highlyunlikely that it was staged, the evidence of thuggish behavior was caught on film. There is no known link between Phil Parlock and the thug who ripped up her sign. It is just too implausible.
I read what you have said, but having met you, I think when push came to shove -- you with your small kids would be out there on the line too.
Rosa knew. She knew what would happen, and it did. That's what I think.
That there would little innocents killed as a consequence of her actions -- so rabid was the bottled up hate. Yet she uncorked it. Everybody has their personal Pandora's box assigned to them, to open. The duty is to open it.
The key that has to be used ... that can be very scary to consider.
This is where real faith comes in. A loving G-d made the world, and watches over it like an eagle. He will help a person of courage and good heart deal with the consequences of their actions when the intent is for good and considered.
Anybody have a link to the union apology anywhere?
My three-year-old doesn't need to be at a John Edwards rally for any reason. Not for his message. Not to meet his supporters. Not to have her sign ripped.
There is not one single reason on earth my three-year-old needs to be anywhere near that man and his people.
The comparison to Rosa Parks and the spark she lit to the civil rights powder keg is not in any way valid.
Anyway, that is my opinion. You are entitled to differ with my opinion, as long as you don't rip up my daughter's sign over it! 8-)
Here's what really happened:
The little girl rip half of the sign off, folded it into a paper airplane, threw it to the guy, causing him to be so delighted that he smiled, and then she ambushed him by screaming her head off, wailing in tears, such that the smile stayed fixed to his face even as he turned his head to look at her. Then the camera man - also a part of the scam - took the picture.
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