Obama Advisor Heckled at Nutroots Meeting

How the mighty have fallen:

One year ago at the Netroots Nation conference in Austin, Texas the mood of the crowd was one of excitement and elation over the possibility of a Barack Obama presidency.

A year later, with that possibility achieved, a sense of cynicism has begun to creep in. On Saturday morning, one of the president's closest advisers, Valerie Jarrett addressed the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh. And while attendees were largely supportive throughout the question and answer session, the reception was warm at best. The defining moment, in fact, came when Jarrett was hissed and heckled.

Roughly midway through the session, Jarrett was pressed to explain why the President was "continuing so many of [Bush's] policies many of which he criticized as candidate Obama." Knowing the mood and makeup of the audience - largely progressive activists from across the country - she acknowledged off the bat that it was "a fair question." But from there, things grew a bit rough.

Jarrett defended the work Obama has done outlawing torture, and releasing Office of Legal Counsel memos detailing how such interrogation practices came to be. At that point, a protester in the audience screamed out a question about why the White House was trying to keep additional photographs of detainee abuse from becoming public.

"I heard somebody shout out about the pictures," Jarrett replied. "Everybody knows what's in those pictures. And this is where it gets very delicate and I know it is a touchy subject for this audience. But what he is trying to balance as president, is keeping us safe, not giving ammunition to people who already have ample ammunition from what they've seen before to be adverse to us."

More shouts and protests followed. "I can't hear you," Jarrett said. "You know what you've got to do? You've got to figure out a way to get your question on here [pointing to the computer on stage that was receiving emails from questioners]. We are not going to have shout outs from the audience."

Byron York noted that at this same convention of the wacky left in 2006 it was all Iraq War/all the time. Suddenly it's "what war?".

These people have earned the "nutroots" title.