Civility and Meghan McCain

It didn't take long, but people are already attacking Meghan McCain for an unfortunate event that occurred during her speech tonight at Indiana State University.

Someone wrote the following on a website which shall remain nameless:

"Meghan McCain just yelled at a handicapped man for making noise at her speech.

I go to Indiana State University and she is here speaking for our Speaker Series. There was a handicapped man there who took a sharp breath in and made a noise when she was being introduced and she blew it off. He did it once more 15 minutes later when she said something funny and she said something along these lines of "seriously, whoever is making that noise get your ass out, I won't hesitate to have you removed." So the family of the man wheeled him on and she kept going. I'm sorry but as a political figure first off you don't yell at someone to get out you ask someone to politely escort them out. Second, there was an interpreter there so there were obviously people with disabilities. I don't know what hurts your credibility more, the likes and ums of your preppy "progressive republican" speech or your lashing out at a handicapped man for making noise during your speech.

Edit: Okay so I just heard from people who stayed that someone asked her about it and she said that she thought he was making cat calls at her, and that she has 2 stalkers she is taking to court already. Apparently she thought this may be another stalker. All I can say is those were nowhere near the sound of a whistle and I'm pretty sure she is just trying to cover her ass."

Others commented that he was right up front in the third row so she could see him, and others called her some pretty nasty names. Look, whether you agree with her politics or not, when someone makes an honest mistake, and was sincere to the point of near tears in her apology, doesn't that mean anything? People need to gain some serious perspective.

And here's mine, because - I was actually there.

My response was this -

"Wow that didn't take long, did it? I was there. He was not in the third row. I was in the eighth on the aisle and he was way behind me. The lights on stage were bright and the auditorium was dark. Speaking as someone who has been on stage, there was no way she could possibly see the person.

After her speech she was both handed a note and told by an audience member that the man was handicapped and was completely taken aback and was embarrassed and regretted what happened. She offered to apologize to the person face to face if he was still there. She also apologized to the audience. She didn't think he was making cat calls at her, she thought he was heckling her and given the amount of "civility" I've seen on this forum in the 2 hours since the post went up, can you really blame her for thinking that?

Just saying..."

I spoke to Meghan for about 10 minutes after the event and found her to be very nice and more sincere than anyone gives her credit for. I don't honestly know how people can possibly cope with so much hatred being leveled at them on a constant basis.

EDIT 2/26 - I've now been marginalized on the same website for signing up just to make my post, so I think that's case and point. If the fault lies anywhere, I believe it to be with the ISU faculty who were on hand - they shouldn't have waited until the end to slip her the note.

See: http://www.indianastatesman.com/controversy-at-isu-kicks-off-mccain-s-tour-1.2017749
for a pretty fair article about the occurrence.