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Crowd Laughs When Congressman Is Asked: Who's Going To Shoot Obama?

From Georgia, the Athens Banner-Heraldreports that at a town hall meeting Tuesday night Republican Rep. Paul Broun was asked by a person in the audience when — or who, depending on the person doing the reporting — someone is going to shoot President Obama.

Two things about what happened next stand out:

-- The question "got a big laugh," the newspaper reports.

-- Broun, his press secretary confirmed, moved on. "Obviously, the question was inappropriate, so Congressman Broun moved on," spokeswoman Jessica Morris told the Banner-Herald.

He responded this way, according to the newspaper:

"The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare."

As Politicosays, Broun "didn't come anywhere near condemning the question in his response."

Broun, a doctor, was f irst elected to Congress in July 2007.

The Washington Post's Plum Line blog says the Secret Service has spoken with the person who asked the question, and determined that "he or she was an 'elderly person' who now regrets making a bad joke."

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.