(and I was exhausted by event's end b/c of the three hours of trying to suck in my gut, look interested--not that I wasn't but you know what I mean, and avoid inadvertently crass body movements or gestures; wishing I'd worn something more flattering; and worrying about getting good photos with a brand new cell phone I hadn't learned to operate, all the while not looking like I was trying to take photos) (And for all that effort, I can't find a single frame of the event with me in it; in every picture out there, that damn Barack Obama guy is always blocking the view of the lady in black to his back left.)

Anyway, shortly after BO greeted the crowd, there came audible a heckling lone voice that reached everybody's radar at slightly different times. There was still enough movement and excitement in the crowd--and BO was probably already speaking--so that it was sort of hit-or-miss as to when everybody realized this guy wasn't with the program, so to speak. He shouted out "Why aren't you saying the pledge?" a few times, interspersed with said crowd noises and BO talk. The disconcerting thing for me was that it was clearly coming from a cameraman. The venue was smallish, with most of the seats being risers along the sides of BO. In front of him were about 15 rows of people in chairs on the floor, but behind them, up on a platform (perhaps made out of tables and covered with carpet or fabric) were a long line of media. It was just a real disconnect to have the mind think that there was a heckler in the crowd but realizing at the same time that it was one of the cameramen speaking. And b/c of my vantage point, I was looking directly at the man in green, who was of course looking directly at BO.

At that point, the crowd sort of started saying O-bam-a, but it was only just the beginnings of a movement toward synchronized chanting. Again, that weird period of trying to figure the situation out. (My son, who was sitting high up to the side, said he assumed the man also yelled out something about favoring McCain or even Hillary as an explanation for the O-bam-a response by the crowd but I heard nothing but talk of the pledge.) BO stopped the crowd with his hand and his "Hold on a minute," to ask the guy what he wanted, and then he said something like "Yeah, we usually start these things by saying the pledge; I don't know why that didn't happen today." and then to the man in green, "Why don't you lead us in the pledge?" And the man did (I think, although I can't be sure.) When it was over, BO thanked him for "reminding" him to do the pledge, and moved on.

My friend who was up high told me later, when we were discussing the incident, that she watched the Secret Service the whole time watching him. He was not thrown out or anything, but she said they were "on him like a hawk," whatever that means. I don't actually believe he was just reminding BO in a friendly manner, although BO just sort of moved forward as though that were it, but it crossed my mind fleetingly at the moment. I think it was a detractor who wanted to cause trouble, and my son reminds me that if BO had tried to skirt the man's request, he'd have been vulnerable later to accusations of "refusing to allow the pledge."

Something that struck me at the time was that it seemed very odd that every one of these events starts with the pledge. I just found myself not believing it. So then I wondered (as only I can) "Is BO now sweating bullets that he said something along the line of 'All these events normally start out with the pledge' when in fact they don't?" As it turns out, his spokeswoman put out a statement clarifying that events like this usually involve invocations and pledging before he gets there. So I think he really WAS standing there worrying about how he handled the whole thing WHILE he was giving his speech. Part of the territory, of course, but honestly he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. What a nightmare this whole patriotism nonsense is.

Altogether it was much ado about nothing. (The larger story around the event in my opinion was that it was an outreach to HRC fans, with Ted Strickland, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, and Sherrod Brown there for support, previous HRC supporters all.) (Brown never officially declared for her but reading between the lines of his wife's Plain Dealer column, it seemed pretty clear he was in her camp). I shook hands and spoke to all of the above, with an especially long conversation with Brown, who said his wife's recent column featuring Michelle Obama rec'd boatloads of responses that were ugly with racism.