Today, at National Defense University, President Obama gave his big national security speech, the one in which he finally acknowledged that his administration has killed four American citizens
In the middle of the president's speech, Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the anti-war group CODEPINK, interrupted Obama with a shouty rejoinder. Rather than getting agitated, the president calmly listened to Benjamin for a brief period before she was escorted out. As Benjamin's voice faded, Obama went off script to address the heckling, saying, "The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said, and obviously she wasn't listening to me and much of what I said. But these are tough issues. And the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."
If you can't view the video above, here's a rough transcription of Benjamin's philippic:
Can you tell the Muslim people their lives are as precious as our lives? Can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA? Can you stop [unintelligible] of killing people on the basis of suspicious activity? Will you compensate the innocent family victims? That will make us safer here at home. I love my country. I love the rule of law. The drones are making us less safe and keeping people in indefinite detention in Guantanamo is making us less safe.
And a gif of a momentarily frustrated Obama, courtesy of BuzzFeed:
