For a very brief moment yesterday, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry stopped her normal Obama administration cheerleading to criticize him for the way he handled a heckler last week during his speech at a gay pride reception. When the protestor wouldn’t quiet down and kept talking over Obama, he responded with “listen, you’re in my house,” which resulted in cheers and applause from those in the room.
Harris actually momentarily voiced the opinion of many conservatives when she noted that “It actually isn’t his house... It’s actually the people’s house.” But this wasn’t her main concern. Her main concern was that the president shut down “a transgender, undocumented women of color.”
HARRIS-PERRY: I do want to remind folks that the president was calling out a transgender, undocumented woman of color, and that it actually isn’t his house. I appreciate- I get the point about this being about presidential swagger. But it's my house. It's our house. It's actually the people's house.
And I'm down for talking tough, but I don't know, to the most marginalized person in the room, how tough that feels to me.
Her panel went on to label this event as “insensitive” because the person was simply “the wrong target,” insinuating it would be a totally different story had this person been, say, a white male protesting for a right-wing issue. So Melissa Harris-Perry and MSNBC are essentially asking the president to “shut down” the opinions of some people if it’s deemed an inappropriate time, but to not apply the same standard if it’s someone “heckling” for the liberal agenda.
