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"In the final Republican presidential debate before next week's primaries, Gary Bauer criticized fellow conservative Alan Keyes Wednesday night for falling into a mosh pit. Keyes defended it as showing trust in his fellow citizens."

I confess I didn't know what a mosh pit was until I read this story, and now that I know, I can tell you that I probably wouldn't jump into one. Perhaps I don't fully share Dr. Keyes' trust our fellow citizens!

According to the AP, a mosh pit is "a crowd of people, typically just in front of the stage, who catch a performer who jumps into the crowd." Dr. Keyes jumped into the mosh pit at an unspecified event "at the urging of his daughter."

At the urging of his daughter... Hmmm... They say a daughter can wrap her Dad around her little finger, and now that I have a daughter of my own, I'm beginning to understand where that theory comes from. My little girl is just barely old enough to say "HiyaDaaDaa," but already I feel a little pretzel shaped at times. As she gets older, I'll be keeping my distance from mosh pits, you may be sure.

Dr. Keyes was apparently none the worse for his leap. He bounced out of the mosh pit crowd with his tie still straight.

Gary Bauer, however, thought Dr. Keyes' mosh pit leap was undignified. Now, isn't that ironic? It's undignified to leap into a mosh pit, but it's not undignified to be a candidate for president in 21st century America? Imagine -- subjected to the ritualized indignity of stupid questions recited over and over again by a mob of tipsy reporters who rush after each other like witless sheep. Pause for a moment and think how degrading it is to debate some of the idiotic proposals that men like Al Gore spew out: Let's require that our highest ranking military leaders encourage sodomy in the armed forces. How about that as a sample of an allegedly serious policy proposal a presidential candidate might have to speak about? How would you like to be forced to respond to media questions like, "What do you think of this abomination?" or "What's your position on that abomination over there?" A mosh pit is nothing compared to the indignity of having to respond to and talk about things so foul and depraved they aren't mentioned in polite society. Not in polite society, perhaps, but on the campaign trail 2000... Wrestle with pigs, they say, and you get dirty.

Alan Keyes may have a greater tolerance for indignity than Gary Bauer. Do you recall when the big media guys decided in 1996 that Alan Keyes was out of the campaign even though he wasn't? (He campaigned all the way to the Convention.) Dr. Keyes was excluded from a debate in South Carolina. He showed up at the next presidential debate in Atlanta and was forcibly removed by the police. I was there. I watched it happen.

Talk about indignities! When I visualize the mosh pit Mr. Bauer referred to in his recent chastisement of Alan Keyes, for some reason I see in my mind the incredible melee that took place outside that Atlanta television station from which Dr. Keyes was banned. There was a brief conversation at the door between Dr. Keyes and a large man who appeared to have a security job. Dr. Keyes attempted to step around him, was blocked, someone grabbed the presidential candidate and held him, and then unbelievable chaos broke loose. My brothers and I were standing back behind the police tape, along with a couple of hundred Keyes supporters, but we were close enough to follow the action. Dr. Keyes disappeared into an amoeba-like mass of people -- dozens of reporters, security people and police crushing each other in a writhing mass, going first this way then that -- elbows and flailing arms and distorted faces, cameras and mikes popping up on top... shouting from the Keyes people rising and falling amid the turmoil, as we ran back and forth on the other side of the tape following the mosh of reporters and police... Every now and then a few voices would change to sheep noises -- baaaah... baaaah... baaah... -- when a reporter was skulking near by.

It took about 15 minutes for them to find a police cruiser and cram Dr. Keyes into it. In the confusion I managed to slip through the police line and get right against the car so I could take a picture.  Lord willing, the photo I have of Dr. Keyes sitting alone in the back seat of the cruiser, not looking his best but remarkably composed, will someday be the basis for an extraordinary portrait hanging in the White House. 

They didn't take Dr. Keyes to jail and he wasn't "arrested", as was erroneously reported; they just dumped him a few blocks away near a pay phone.

My brother shot video of this whole thing, by the way. It's rugged footage, I think about 40 or 45 minutes of it, but Michael did a remarkable job of keeping the tape rolling throughout "the indignity" -- and during the aftermath when people like Pat Buchanan came out to express his regrets, etc., and when Dr. Keyes himself eventually made it back to talk to his supporters. I'm convinced this video has historical significance, as would a video of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, if such a video existed. [Michael will explain the video to you in more detail at http://www.dispatches.com]

To a politically and culturally dominant media elite which has decided all the "front runners" and all the important issues, and has determined what range of political opinions each of us may have, based on gender, religion and race --  Alan Keyes is a threat. They don't understand why this negro won't chop cotton like he ought to, just as their intellectual forebears didn't understand why Mrs. Parks wouldn't hop out of her seat and shuffle to the back of the bus. Alan Keyes articulates thoughts he isn't supposed to have because he's black and he talks eloquently and persuasively about things -- like abortion -- which no one should be talking about because the elite has already decided we'll all talk about money, money, money -- never about blood and violence against children and an injustice like unto and worse than the injustice of slavery. Because Alan Keyes doesn't say Yas, Massa, the media will ignore him in one place and stuff him into a police cruiser somewhere else -- anything but listen to him and admit that his critique of the American Republic has merit. The prejudice, scorn and abuse these media people can dish out constitutes Indignity worthy of a capital "I". This is not the petty, so-called indignity of having one's suit crumpled from a little impulsive playfulness. To a candidate whose handlers and image manipulators are perpetually stressed about whether their man's makeup is right for the lighting and other such frivolous things, a mosh pit must be a thing of horror. But Alan Keyes is a seasoned campaigner, very much inured to the real indignities of a political campaign.

And he has a sense of humor. So when his daughter says sweetly, "Hey, Dad, why don't you jump in the mosh pit?" Hmm...Well, I guess it's... 

"Bombs away!"  

Peter Barry 1/28/2000

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