Did Jan Brewer Punch a Reporter for Asking Her about Global Warming?
Jan Brewer, Arizona's MIA governor, is not afraid of confrontation. So when KTVK reporter Dennis Welch asked her about global warming this weekend, Gov. Brewer let him have it, and the video of her response instantly went viral.
It's the stuff political viral video dreams are made of, with Brewer asking "where in the hell" the question came from, and denying that global warming is man-made. Then an aide ushers Brewer away, and that was that. Until a photographer from a local newspaper reached out to the media blog Romanesko, describing via email what he saw after the cameras stopped rolling.
From photographer Michael Clawson's email:
He had turned to a camera operator and seemed to be putting his microphone away. Brewer took her left hand, balled it into a fist and with the back of her hand she slugged the reporter on the back of his right arm. Not hard, but with enough force that he spun around to see what was going on. She leaned in real close and looked up (she's a shorter lady) and said in a whisper loud enough for most of us to hear, "Where the hell'd that come from?"
When Romenesko reached out to Welch for comment, he responded:
"I'd say this is a fair and accurate account."
