North Carolina congressman Bob Etheridge has apologized for grabbing a young man who approached him on a Washington D.C. sidewalk with a video camera and asked if he supports President Barack Obama’s agenda. (June 14)
An angry Bob Etheridge confronts an interviewer and videographer (Rep. Bob Etheridge apologized in and said he regrets his reaction.)
Transcript:
Interviewer: Hi Congressman
Etheridge: Tell me who you are
Student Interviewer: Do you fully support the Obama agenda?
Etheridge: Who are you? Who are you? [Strikes camera, grabs wrist, swats and misses interviewer while holding interviewer’s right wrist]
Interviewer: I’m just here for a project, sir.
VIdeographer: We’re just here for a project, sir.
Etheridge: Tell me who your are.
Videographer: We’re just here for a project.
Etheridge: I don’t care about that [with clenched teeth … angrily holding right wrist of interviewer]
Etheridge: Tell me who you are.
Interviewer: I’m just a student, sir.
Eheridge: From? tell me who you are.
Interviewer: We’re just students. That’s all we are.
Etheridge: I have a right to know who you are.
Videographer: We’re on a public’s … way.
Etheridge: So am I. Who are you? Who are you?
Interviewer: Please let go of my arm.
Etheridge: Who are you? [Etheridge grabs the back of the interviewer’s neck that turns into a one-arm bear hug]
Interviewer: Sir. Sir!
Etheridge: Who are you?
Bobby Ray “Bob” Etheridge (born August 7, 1941) is a member of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina, representing that state’s 2nd congressional district. Etheridge, a Democrat was first elected to the House in 1996.
Born in Sampson County, North Carolina, Etheridge attended Campbell University on an athletic scholarship and became the first member of his family to earn a diploma when he received a business degree in 1965. He served in the United States Army from 1965 to 1967. Etheridge has also done graduate work in the field of economics. A tobacco farmer and hardware store owner by trade, Etheridge served as a Harnett County commissioner from 1973 to 1977.
Bob Etheridge is a member of the New Democrat Coalition. He is active in Freemasonry and is currently the Grand Orator for North Carolina Freemasonry. Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around five million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in England, Scotland and Ireland. The various forms all share moral and metaphysical ideals, which include, in most cases, a constitutional declaration of belief in a Supreme Being. Freemasonry has attracted criticism from theocratic states and organised religions for supposed competition with religion, or supposed heterodoxy within the Fraternity itself, and has long been the target of conspiracy theories, which see it as an occult and evil power.