Joe Miller lies about WHY he had security at public town hall meeting. Update!

On Miller's campaign website he describe the incident with Tony Hopfinger as follows:

Liberal Blogger “Loses It” at Town Hall Meeting

Obsession with Republican Nominee leads to physical assault, publicity stunt

Anchorage, Alaska. October 17, 2010 — Joe Miller released the following statement:

“While I’ve gotten used to the blog Alaska Dispatch’s assault on me and my family, I never thought that it would lead to a physical assault. It’s too bad that this blogger would take advantage of a “Town Hall” meeting to create a publicity stunt just two weeks before the election.”

The Miller campaign was required by the facility to provide security at the event. Even though Joe had spent nearly an hour freely answering questions from those in attendance, the blogger chased Miller to the exit after the event concluded in an attempt to create and then record a ‘confrontation’ with the candidate. While Miller attempted to calmly exit the facility, the blogger physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate. At that point the security personnel had to take action and intervened and detained the irrational blogger, whose anger overcame him. It is also important to note that the security personnel did not know that the individual they detained was a blogger who was reporting on the campaign. To them, the blogger appeared irrational, angry and potentially violent.

So according to Joe Miller his contract with the school district REQUIRED that he have security staff on the premises.  Really?

Well let's just see what the Community Services Department Facilities Use Application says exactly.

The only portion that seems relevant to this claim in any way is the following:

3. The permit holder shall be responsible for the conduct and control of both patrons and participants, and must comply with all applicable state and federal laws, city ordinances, School District regulations, by-laws, and policies and permit conditions.

Okay so I made some phone calls, because other politicians have also used public school buildings and other municipal buildings for gatherings in the past, and asked what THEY had done to meet this requirement.

What I learned is that NO OTHER POLITICIAN IN THIS STATE has ever used a private security force to "control both patrons and participants."   According to the people I talked to they simply used volunteers and/or paid staff members to "control patrons and participants," even during the VERY volatile health care town halls that were held back in August of 2009.

Do you remember those? During that time the local 2nd amendment assholes were turning up with holstered weapons and standing outside of the Dena'ina Center with bullhorns and daring Senator Begich to come out and talk to them face to face.  And yet Mark did not feel the need to hire "Soldier of Fortune" magazine subscribers or "jack booted thugs"  to protect him from his constituents. And here is Lisa Murkowski's statement on Joe Miller's obvious paranoia.

"I find it alarming that Joe feels he needs to hire security forces to protect him from Alaskan voters and members of the press.”

So despite Joe Miller's claims, those security goons were there for one reason and one reason only, and that was to keep the journalists from cornering the candidate and making him answer the questions that he simply does not want to answer.

Essentially Joe Miller is so terrified of the press that he has to hide behind hired thugs, and THIS guy thinks he can represent REAL Alaskans?  Hah!

Update: Huffington Post as a video of Joe MIller talking to, you guessed it, Fox News about the incident and continuing to claim that the Middle School REQUIRED him to provide a security staff. 

I do NOT have any information about whether or not Hopfinger followed him into the potty, but I am going to the debate tonight so perhaps he will answer that charge there.