Some people would call this harassment
by digby
… and I’m not talking about what Lois Lerner was doing:
Lois Lerner attempted to bust into a neighbor’s home uninvited, in a desperate attempt to avoid answering questions about her involvement in the targeting of conservative groups.
Jason Mattera, author of the explosive new book CRAPITALISM: Liberals Who Make Millions Swiping Your Tax Dollars, recently caught up with the disgraced former IRS official in her ritzy neighborhood outside Washington, D.C.
Mattera, who publishes the Daily Surge, asked Lerner if she had any regrets for her role in the ongoing IRS corruption case, and if she wanted to take the opportunity to give a genuine apology to conservatives for using the force of government to harass and single them out.
But, similar to her testimony before Congress where she pleaded the fifth, Lerner didn’t show any remorse, and, on a more latent level, showed her disregard for people’s privacy rights in general. In the video above, you can see Lerner fleeing from Mattera as she rushes through what appears to be a random person’s front yard.“Could you call the police?” Lerner begs an elderly woman, while pounding on her door. “Please let me in. These guys are with the press and they’re not leaving me alone.” The elderly woman is heard telling Lerner that she just had surgery and was in no position physically to let her in the house.
But that didn’t stop Lerner. She implores that same elderly woman to open up her garage instead.
“It’s almost a perfect proxy for her actions in the targeting scandal,” Mattera said.“She keeps badgering an innocent woman with zero regard for her wishes. It’s an incredible crystallization of Lerner’s character or lack thereof.”
The natural question the viewer asks, he notes, is, “If she’s willing to barge into a person’s home, how much more so is she willing to barge into a conservative’s IRS records to inflict her personal will?”
Eventually, the elderly woman’s husband sees Lerner’s antics and kicks her off his property. “Out. Out!” he demanded.
I can’t help but be reminded of this from Michelle Malkin back in 2004:
After meeting in Washington for its annual convention this weekend, NPA members descended on the Washington, D.C., homes of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and White House adviser Karl Rove. NPA targeted Chao after the Department of Labor refused to meet with the group and acquiesce to its demand to “form a partnership” to “improve opportunities for low-wage workers.” In other words, the gang didn’t get a government contract through legal channels. So it’s going to bully its way into the public coffers.
An estimated mob of 800 protesters trampled on Rove’s lawn to demand passage of Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s abominable “DREAM” Act granting amnesty to illegal alien college students and allowing them to receive in-state tuition discounts. The Washington Post reported that after chanting and knocking on Rove’s door, the “crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove’s house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read ‘Say Yes to DREAM’ and pounding on the glass.” An angry Rove called the authorities and berated the protest leaders for driving the children inside his home to tears.
As a vocal critic of Rove’s idiotic pro-illegal alien policies, I am not all that sad to see Rove come face to face with the consequences of his politically expedient ideas. (Rove is the one who declared that Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., the nation’s leading advocate for secure borders and immigration enforcement, would “never darken the White House door.”) Now Rove knows how millions of ordinary Americans — who don’t have Secret Service protection — feel when illegal invaders overrun their homes and darken their doors.
That said, NPA’s militant tactics cross the bounds of decent political debate. (Aren’t liberals always the ones moaning about the need for civility?) Grievance-mongering belongs on the Capitol steps, not private doorsteps.
For the record, I wasn’t in favor of that action either. I do think political actors of all persuasions should not be stalked at their homes. That’s an awful video.
And Malkin, you’ll recall, went on the publicize the phone numbers of some college student in Santa Cruz and then stalk the family of Graehm Frost to report that they had granite counters in their kitchen and there fore had no right to government help for health care for their sick kid.
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