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Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) don’t need to take no guff from nobody, pal. Especially the MSM:
Rep. Michael Grimm of New York, under investigation for alleged campaign finance improprieties, threatened to throw a reporter off a balcony during an interview following President Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
After being asked by NY1 reporter Michael Scotto about the investigation, Grimm replied, “That’s off-topic. This is only about president’s speech,” and walked off camera.
Scotto briefly concluded his report, and Grimm — assuming the broadcast was over — returned to admonish the reporter. The camera remained on, however. “Let me be clear to you: You ever do that to me again, I’ll throw you off this f—— balcony,” Grimm threatened.
After a brief back-and-forth about the validity of the question, Grimm concluded, “No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.”
“Reminder: Before politics, former Marine Michael Grimm was undercover FBI agent ‘Mikey Suits’ in the Gambino family,” Robert A. George of the New York Post adds. But as Ari Fleischer tweeted, “Rep. Grimm has now made it impossible for reporters NOT to ask him about his campaign finance problems. Not a smart move.”
“Start writing that resignation speech, you idiot,” New York-area blogger Jammie Wearing Fool writes. “This guy has been an embarrassment since he’s been in Congress. It’s time he goes.”
While Grimm threatened violence and mayhem, elsewhere in the dangerous world of New York and politics, ABC’s Brian Ross accidentally delivered the real thing. The New York Post reported yesterday that “ABC correspondent Brian Ross smashed his BMW into a jaywalking pedestrian outside the network’s studios on the Upper West Side Sunday evening, authorities said:”
The man he hit, a 52-year-old former taxi driver from Queens, suffered a broken left arm, bruises and back pain.
“I said, ‘I know this guy, I’ve seen his face!’ ” injured ex-hack Roman Dati told The Post on Monday of the journalist who appears on such programs as “20/20” and “Good Morning America.”
Cops said Ross, 65, was turning left from 67th Street onto Columbus Avenue at around 6 p.m. when Dati stepped into the path of his black 2013 7 Series Beemer.
Ross had the right of way, turning with the light, when he struck Dati, law-enforcement sources said. There were no drugs or alcohol involved, police said, and no summonses or charges were filed.
As the Post goes on to note, “Ross has had his share of controversy while on the job.” Perhaps his most infamous moment occurred in July of 2012, when while being interviewed by former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, Ross blamed the shooting at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater on a Tea Party member, who happened to share the same name as the actual suspect.
But that will all be momentarily forgotten by the MSM; expect the media to obsess on Rep. Grimm’s moronic outburst today. MSNBC might as well give their newsreaders the day off and just put the video of Grimm onto a continuous loop.
Which tells you just how unmemorable the actual remarks of the president — remember him? — were during last night’s State of the Union.
Related: Kyle Smith in the New York Post this past weekend: “Obama, de Blasio and Cuomo thrive on political revenge.”
And in a post on Chris Christie’s Bridgegate versus “Obama’s Payback Theater,” Glenn Reynolds blogs, “I can’t help but feel that the press’s focus on Christie is not just the obvious political shilling, but also, in some sense, a displacement response. Bullied by Obama, but unwilling to go after him for it, they turn their attention to smaller-scale targets that are safe.”
See also: Likely MSM feeding frenzy about to devour Grimm, for this news cycle at a minimum.
Update: From the Politico, this past September: “Michael Grimm to Ted Cruz: ‘Put up or shut up:’”
Rep. Michael Grimm said Friday that senators like Ted Cruz who have been calling for a government spending bill that defunds Obamacare have been essentially floating bad checks and the House vote to do so forces them to “put up or shut up.”
“Ted Cruz and others like him have been writing checks with their mouth that their votes can’t cash, and, you know, I think now they have to put up or shut up,” Grimm (R-N.Y.) said on MSNBC’s “Jansing and Co.” on Friday. “That’s one message that I want to send back to the Senate, that they can’t continue this political rhetoric if they don’t plan on backing it up.”
* * * * * * *
“When you have Sen. Cruz and others constantly going out there on every show imaginable and running ads that we can defund Obamacare, I think that hurts the Republican Party,” Grimm said. “I think this is an opportunity to maybe start putting an end to that and having maybe a unification of the Republican Party. … We have some things we need to work out among the far arch-conservative right wing of our party, and I think this is part of that process, as painful as it is.”
Hey, the media certainly went easy this month on Chris Christie after he hugged Obama and shivved Romney at the end of the 2012 election cycle. I’m sure they’ll give the equally centrist Grimm a similar pass for threatening to kill a reporter, right?
Related: “Politico: Repub Verbal Threat Bigger Story Than Dem Physical Assault.” Plus, “Democratic Detroit City Council President’s security squad pushes around reporter. On tape.”
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