Lauren Boebert’s Heckling of Joe Biden Causes Great Consternation – Opinion

As you’ve probably ascertained by now, assuming you didn’t subject yourself personally to the torture, Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union last night. And while I’d like to say it was everything I expected it to be, as in boring, repetitive, and tone-deaf, it was actually worse. Whoever actually wrote the president’s speech should probably be relieved of their duties going forward. Any hope that Biden’s performance was going to reset or rescue his collapsing presidency died within the first 20 minutes or so.

Then there were the theatrics, some of which came courtesy of Rep. Lauren Boebert, who could be heard shouting “13 of them” after the president mentioned “flag-draped coffins.” That was obviously a vocal critique of the fact that Biden completely absconded from even mentioning the servicemembers who died during the Afghanistan evacuation due to his incompetence.

After the heckling, consternation erupted from the media. Boebert could have committed such an inexplicable breach of decorum.

Boebert heckled Biden when he mentioned “flag-draped coffins” — she yelled “13 of them” in reference to the Kabul airport terrorist attack which Biden made no mention of — just ***before*** he said “one of those was my son.” It’s all on video & everything.pic.twitter.com/lOMohnPVXf https://t.co/7sRO304Z54

— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) March 2, 2022

In a different era, a congresswoman shouting and heckling the president at the SOTU while he was talking about US soldiers Killed In Action — and was about to invoke his own dead son — would be widely condemned across the political spectrum. Start with her caucus leader.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 2, 2022

Let’s start with the fact that Tapper is actually lying in his criticism of Boebert. Joe Biden wasn’t referring to soldiers who died in combat. In fact, the entire point of Boebert’s outburst was to point out that the president was expressly Ignoring them. Biden actually meant to refer to the Iraqi burn pits. The president has, multiple times, attempted to connect (without evidence) his late son’s cancer to them.

Regardless, it is incredibly rich to see the media complain about Boebert when they cheered Nancy Pelosi ripping up Trump’s SOTU print-out on camera, while he was still behind the podium, mind you. Trump received a lot of heckling and saw his SOTU speech-makers get up to walk. Jake Tapper and The Washington Post did not clutch their pearls above it at any point. This is how these partisan hackers can save us from faux anger at acts that are comparable to the ones against President Obama.

Returning to the key issue, though, it is ridiculous that the media would focus on Boebert when the most disturbing aspect of this ordeal is Biden’s remarks or lack thereof.

Beau Biden’s death was tragic, by the way. To attribute that death, years after military service, to American military policy — without any evidence — is wrong. Biden made the same mistake when he compared Beau’s death with that of 13 Americans in last year.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 2, 2022

As Shapiro notes, while Beau Biden’s death was a tragedy, there is zero evidence connecting his development of cancer years after he left Iraq to the burn pits in Iraq. For Joe Biden to once again use his son’s death as a political tool while ignoring the 13 dead Americans who perished in Afghanistan just months ago is disgusting. It becomes even more so when you consider the botched evacuation of Afghanistan largely happened because of the president’s desire to give a “victory” speech on 9/11.

So while the media can obsess over Boebert’s moment of heckling, I think most Americans understand the real problem. It’s not a lack of decorum during the State of the Union toward a president who has shown none. Rather, it’s Biden’s policies and the results of them, and that includes how he’s harmed US military service members.