Joe Miller sure stirred up a media meme-fest when his private security guards handcuffed a local reporter.

First up, must see video from the Anchorage Daily News reporter Richard Mauer shot just moments after Alaska Dispatch editor Tony Hopfinger was handcuffed and detained:

Meanwhile, it turns out that during the event Miller praised East German border control in response to a question on illegal immigration:

“East Germany was very, very able to reduce the flow” from one side of the border to the other. “Now, obviously, other things there were involved. We have the capacity to, as a great nation, obviously to secure our border. If East Germany could, we could.”

Watch:

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway offers up this gentle rejoinder:

It’s an odd analogy to say the least, especially considering the fact the Berlin Wall was designed to keep people from leaving the GDR, not to prevent them from entering it illegally, and that East German border guards had blanket authority to shoot to kill anyone caught trying to cross the border. Now, obviously, I don’t believe that Miller wants to mimic the East Germans, but it is odd indeed to select that nation as an example of responsible immigration policy.

Daily Kos Jed Lewison let’s ‘er rip:

Okay, first things first: it was Stalin — not the East Germans — who built that wall.

Second, given that Ronald Reagan said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall” wouldn’t he be turning in his grave if he knew that Joe Miller wanted to follow in Stalin’s footsteps?

But to be fair, in a twisted sort of way it actually makes sense that this joker is embracing Reagan’s mortal enemy, because the immigration policies that he so strongly detests were signed into law by…you guessed it…Ronald Reagan. In 1986.

Yeah, yeah. Jed’s correction:

The wall was built in 1961 when Khrushchev led the USSR. Stalin had died eight years earlier. I plead guilty to making this error and would like to apologize to Joe Miller for suggesting he supported a policy of Stalin’s USSR, for fear of a shoe being banged on my desk. Miller wasn’t supporting a policy of Stalin’s USSR; it was actually a policy of Khrushchev’s USSR. Oops.

Miller explained to Neil Cavuto that Hopfinger even followed him into the bathroom!

Right. So obviously he needed to be handcuffed and detained.

Best Tweet… Scott McAdams, the Democrat in the race:

While we’re at it Steve Benen, reluctantly, imagines what it would be like if Miller were a Democrat. The Mudflats’ Shannyn Moore looks at The Drop Zone, the business behind Joe Miller’s Militia and, in passing, succinctly summarizes the Fairbanks North Star Borough issue that Miller’s refusing to answer questions about:

All indicators point toward Miller using the computer resources of his employer, the Fairbanks North Star Borough, to rig some sort of vote, and then clearing out the cache to conceal that fact.

And while everyone’s calling The Alaska Dispatch “a blog” and Hopfinger a “blogger,” it’s worth noting he’s an accredited journalist and “the Dispatch is a for-profit start-up news website that employees four reporters, two of whom have won Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting).”