The following piece is published on Iowa Independent as well as HuffPost's OffTheBus.
Not everyone was happy to see Bill Clinton in Iowa City Monday night. Just as Clinton was about to hit his stride, an unidentified robot heckled the former president, who was playing the surrogate role while stumping for his wife, Hillary Clinton, at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa campus.
Dressed as a contemporary robot reminiscent of Gort in the 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the soon-to-be heckler mounted a chair on the media platform as if it was going to snap a picture of Clinton. The chair began to wobble a bit before fellow journalists offered support, not knowing at the time that they were aiding and abetting a future heckler.
"I want you to apologize to Sister Souljah!"
Trying to maintain his poise, Clinton initially fell into a sophomoric rebuttal: "Look, look into the mirror... "
Clearly on a premeditated mission, Mr. Ifobaca began throwing dozens of multicolored slips of paper in the air, thus providing Clinton with the opportunity to recapture his wits and respond:
"You need to find a more responsible ways to protest than throwing graffiti around. "You can disagree with me without killing a tree."
Most of the crowd laughed at Clinton's quip (not that he said graffiti, when he meant to say confetti), but some were enraged by the disruption and began booing and yelling at Mr. Ifobaca. One woman, clearly a devout Hillraiser gauging by her Hillary flair adorning her blouse and matching jacket, began screaming at Mr. Ifobaca and waving her arms at the robot as if she intended to scratch his eyes out. Mr. Ifobaca, unperturbed by the woman, namely because he was wearing safety goggles for such occasions, was eventually escorted from the platform and ballroom by security.
After Mr. Ifobaca left, a Hillary Clinton team entered the media pit and made a mad scramble for the littered propaganda, making sure all the calling cards were collected before they fell into the wrong hands. The scene was reminiscent of the 1967 Abbie Hoffman stunt in which he and his fellow demonstrators threw fistfuls of dollars (most fake) down to traders on the New York Stock Exchange, some of whom booed, while others scrambled frantically to grab the money as fast as they could.
No charges were pressed against Mr. Ifobaca, who, unmasked, was not Klaatu, but rather Kembrew McLeod -- a tenured professor in the Communication Studies Department at the UI.