We sadly couldn't make it to the Western Conservative Political Union Action Conference this weekend at the Radisson in Newport Beach. Luckily, conservative filmmaker and former KFI blabber John Ziegler was on hand to film the top drama of the conference: his own antics.
When David Foster Wallace profiled Ziegler in 2005 for the Atlantic, my takeaway was that Ziegler doesn't really get along with other human beings very well. He recently got arrested for making trouble at a Katie Couric appearance at USC. And, lo and behold, this weekend in Newport, he got into a confrontation with CPAC chairman David Keene and was kicked out by WCPAC organizer Jim Lacy.
All three videos of Ziegler's saga are posted on Red County, but here's the one where things start to get dicey:
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The brouhaha began with Ziegler interviewing Keene. Ziegler had a bone to pick with Keene, a top conservative, for publicly criticizing Sarah Palin, supporting Arlen Specter in 2004, and allegedly lending his organization's public support to policy stands in exchange for money. In Ziegler's mind, those three things apparently serve as evidence that Keene was being paid to talk smack on Sarah Palin (because who would criticize Sarah Barracuda for any reason other than money?). Ziegler got pretty accusatory and repetetive in the interview, not accepting Keene's explanations for his actions and getting up to follow the chairman around the conference.
Eventually, Keene calls Ziegler an “asshole,” says he wants to punch him and has the cops throw him out of the conference. At another point, Ziegler manages to jump on stage while Jim Lacy is talking about how obnoxious Ziegler is. Watch the entire episode here.
GOP 2010!
Update, 2:46 p.m.: Actually, this third video is definitely worth posting. It features Ziegler's horribly awkward perp walk with a sad, ineffectual Radisson security guy.
