The Michael Grimm story of threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony because of a question the New York Republican didn’t like has begun to take on a life of its own.
It’s following an all-too-familiar pattern -- a controversy, an inadequate first response, a massive media glare, an apology, and finally the desire to move on.
But this isn’t the first time a shiny-metal object -- with little-to-no political consequence, beyond perhaps hurting Grimm for his reelection -- has distracted from the substance of an address to Congress and the nation in the Obama Era.
Here’s a look back:
2009: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Republican response was lampooned as being “Kenneth the Page”-like.
Later that year, Obama went before Congress to deliver an address on health care. That’s when South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson blurted out, “You Lie!”
2010: Justice Samuel Alito shakes his head at the State of the Union, mouthing “not true” at President Obama’s criticism of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
2011: Michele Bachmann delivered the Tea Party response. In a bit of poor planning, she wound up looking at wrong camera for the television audience. She was looking at the livestream web camera for Tea Party Express, but most people were watching on broadcast and cable television.
2012: Mitch Daniels’ despair/unhopeful response lampooned by Jon Stewart. It was also a State of the Union that was delivered in the heart of the GOP primary.
2013: Marco Rubio’s water sip after the State of the Union got all the attention, but before it was Ted Nugent being in the hall as a guest of Texas Rep. Steve Stockman.
2014: Michael “Throw you off the Balcony” Grimm and before that a Duck Dynasty star being another controversial guest (as well as a handful of others).
By the way, Twitter was invented in 2006 and, perhaps not so coincidentally, started to gain real popularity in 2009.