Obama Got Heckled at a New Hampshire High School

White House
Adam Martin and Alexander Abad-Santos 12,140 Views Nov 22, 2011

Update (3:07 p.m. EST): As commenter The Gene Machine pointed out, the hecklers were complaining about the thousands of arrests nationwide at protests by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They were shouted down before they could finish, but the Associated Press got a photo of the scripted comments:

It says:

Mr. President:

Over 4,000 peaceful protesters

have been arrested.

While Banksters continue

to destroy the economy with impunity.

You must stop the assault

on our First Amendment rights.

Your silence sends a message

that police brutality is acceptable.

Banks got bailed out.

We got sold out.

But they only got to the bit about the protesters arrested before the rest of the crowd shouted them down with cries of "Obama" and "Yes, we can." The Hill has a full version of the president's response:

The president smiled through the disruption, saying: “No, it's OK,” as other parts of the crowd sought to hush the protesters by chanting his name and old campaign slogan, “Yes We Can.”

“OK, guys,” Obama said after supporters drowned out the hecklers.

A few minutes later, Obama acknowledged the Occupy protest movement again, saying: “You are the reason I ran for office.”“I appreciate you guys making your point; let me go ahead and make mine,” Obama said before continuing his speech. “I'll listen to you, you listen to me, OK?”

Original: President Barack Obama spoke in Manchester, New Hampshire, to further promote his USA Jobs Act, as he's been doing, and the heckling started right after The President said, "You guys are pretty excited about being seniors."  To us it sounded like the heckler yelled "Mic Check" -- an Occupy Wall Street catchphrase. Then from the shoddy audio there were chants of what sounded like "Fired up? Ready to Go!"  and "Obama." Through it all, the president smiled and, once the shouting died down, invoked Occupy Wall Street's "profound sense of frustration that the American Dream is slipping away." The White House now has posted streaming video if you want to tune in.

Update (1:05 p.m. EST): The live feed is over, but New Yorkist tweeted this YouTube video of the commander in chief getting heckled:

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the authors at amartin at theatlantic dot com or aabadsantos at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.

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