Fallin Wont Take the Podium Until Opposition is Removed from the Room

Yesterday the Jim Thorpe Museum was host to the annual President’s Forum, a gathering of University and College Presidents, the Board of Regents, and a handful of other dignitaries and invited guests.

Speaking before this distinguished audience were the two candidates for governor, Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins, and Congresswoman Mary Fallin.  The format for the event was that Fallin would first deliver remarks, then take questions, and then Askins would do the same.

However, just before she was to begin, Fallin made a strange request of the event organizers; she didn’t want the Lieutenant Governor in the room while she spoke.  Nor did she want any of Jari’s staff in the room.  In fact, she even scanned the room for faces that might be unfriendly, to see who else she should have ejected.  Apparently she didn’t like the look on State Senator Mike Morgan’s face, because she told the event organizers she would not take the podium until he had left the room.

Senator Morgan was a guest of the event.  He was seated at a table enjoying his lunch, until he was unceremoniously asked to gather up his things and leave the room until it became Jari’s turn to address the crowd, at which point he wsa welcome to re-take his seat.

This kind of behavior, from a candidate for governor no less, is both paranoid and more than a little ridiculous.  As a public official she’s going to have to get used to being in a room full of people who agree and those who disagree with her.  To petulantly refuse to take the podium until everyone who might be unfriendly to her way of thinking has been ejected from the event isn’t the kind of behavior this blogger is willing to accept from an elected official.  This isn’t Soviet Russia, it’s Oklahoma.

As a side note, if memory serves, one of the issues Fallin primary opponent Randy Brogdon was most passionate about was transparency in government.  Hopefully his supporters have noticed that Fallin is no fan of transparency, going so far as to have people thrown out of a forum because they might not like what she has to say.  For shame!

In the spirit of transparency, FallinFail is making video of the Congresswoman’s remarks available on our YouTube channel.  Upon review, we’re not sure what, specifically, it is she was hoping to hide, as she doesn’t say anything too earth-shattering.  Nonetheless, in case you are one of the individuals she had thrown out, here’s what you missed.