Ugh

[ceebeegee]

Just another reason I can't stand our current Emperor with No Clothes. God forbid he be confronted with the knowledge that some of his constituents (you know, the people who pay his salary and to whom he is beholden) disagree with him:

As Bush has traveled the United States during this political campaign, the Secret Service and local police have often handled public protest by quickly arresting or removing demonstrators, free-speech advocates say.

...

"It's clear that some of these security zones are not based on legitimate security concerns. They are based on the idea of the president not seeing someone who disagrees with him, which basically undermines the whole idea of the First Amendment."

...

The Kerry campaign says it does not limit attendance based on political views, a point Kerry has made frequently when confronted by hecklers on the campaign trail."

If this happened to me, I would sue the shit out these people for false arrest. Arrest should not be a political tool to suppress dissent--it should an enforcement of the law. What law is there against telling the President you disagree with him? But I'm disgusted, not surprised--it's clear from Bush's policies that he intends to give the big middle finger to half the country's population, despite his running as "a uniter, not a divider" and notwithstanding that less than half the country voted for him. Why can't he talk to these people, why can't he acknowledge that a lot of voters disagree with his policies, why can't he reach out? Oh, because he thinks God told him to do this. I guess if God is in the Cabinet, you don't need to listen to the little people.

Comments

[mysticblaze.livejournal.com]

I think that people are completely misinformed as to the duties of the Secret Service when guarding the President of the United States. My guess, based on all the protests that I have seen on television, is that those who get close to the President to voice their disagreement do so in a violent or threatening manner, such as raising their fists. I highly doubt that those people are walking up to the President and expressing themselves in a polite, quiet and non-aggressive manner. As such, they present a threat to the protectee. It is the duty of the Secret Service to keep the protectee safe, and that duty includes removing those who may even pose a scintilla of threat. You cannot and must not fault the Secret Service agents for doing their job.

I should also mention that Kerry also has a Secret Service protective detail. Every major candidate does, as do their immediate family members (My stepfather worked on the Dukakis detail when he ran in 1988). Those agents assigned to their details will provide the same type of protection to their protectees as they do for the President.

It isn't about limiting free speech as you suggest, but keeping the protectee safe from bodily harm. When a protectee is so reviled as is the current President, ANY person coming up to him expressing their dissent in a belligerent, angry, loud manner could be seen as posing a threat. It is a judgment call as to whom to remove by the agents on the detail, not the protectee. If you must, then accuse the agents of limiting free speech... but remember, no freedom is absolute in this country despite what everyone believes.

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

I can't really agree with this assessment, at least not based on that article, and other ones like it that I've read beforehand. If people were coming right up to the president, that would be one thing, but from what I gather, that's not the case. From what I gather, it's more a matter of if you're in the crowd at a rally, you know, any place where the president might see you in passing, you get hauled off. And really, a guy who doesn't like the president in a rally is no more or less threatening than anyone else in a rally. If you figure someone in a crowd can pull out a gun and take a shot, then you have to figure that anyone in the crowd could do the same. What's more, someone who hates Bush enough to want to take a shot at him probably isn't going to show up wearing a Kerry/Edwards t-shirt.

But even aside from all that, what about the republicans requiring people to sign a pledge of support for the president before being allowed into a Bush rally? That has nothing to do with security, that's just Bush keeping away people he disagrees with so that he doesn't have to hear them. I suppose you could argue that he has a case for not wanting to have his rallies disrupted by hecklers, but I'd say that, as president, no, he doesn't have a case. He's supposed to be a leader for all of us, not just for the people who like him. Yeah, you can throw people out who are disruptive, but forcing people to pledge their loyalty just so they can see you speak... that's seriously fucked up.

[minstrel70.livejournal.com]

I could agree with this in principle if these were public, open-air events, but we're talking about campaign rallies on private property rented by the BC04 campaign or the RNC for that purpose. Yes, they're staged events, but he has every right to stage them so.

It happens on both sides, though. Perhaps Kerry's events are more open than Bush's, but both parties prefer to keep the rallies to the loyalists. I haven't tried to protest or show dissent at a Kerry event this year (haven't been to one at all), but in 1992 and 1996 I received some rather rude treatment at Clinton-Gore events in NJ.

I recall one in particular in 1992. Al Gore was to speak, on public property in the projects in Newark, along with Sharpe James and Al Sharpton. I was there with about 15 College Republicans, with buttons and signs, on the far edge of the crowd, just trying to make sure there were Bush '92 signs visible in all the TV camera shots. Clinton-Gore campaign folks asked us to leave; we reminded them we were on public land, exercising our First Amendment rights. So Sharpe James, Mayor of Newark came over with a few cops, and suggested that there weren't enough police to protect us if the neighborhood turned against us. We thanked him for his concern, but stayed. So he picked up a bullhorn and made sure everyone within several blocks knew we were there, and who we were. Another cop came over to us and said (I paraphrase, it was 12 years ago) "Look, I'm voting for Bush too, and I think the Mayor is an asshole, but he's got a point -- we can't protect you if the crowd gets nasty, and he's trying to rile them up." So we left.

All of this transpired before Gore's arrival. We never had a chance to heckle him.

All I'm saying is, even in public spaces, there are safety and crowd control concerns at large campaign rallies. When those events take place on private property, it's not only the right, but in my opinion the responsibility of the campaign to limit who can attend.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

It's not really a question of legality, or whether or not Bush or the RNC has the right to stage them thus (if the events are on private land, then of course they do). It's the broader question of the President--the ostensible servant of the people, only this one admits he rarely reads the newspapers, and seems to think he "doesn't owe anyone an explanation" (per the article quoted above)--further insulating himself from contrary opinions, and only hearing the adulation. It really does disturb me. He needs to hear the bad stuff, not just the good stuff--it's like that story Pat Robertson's been telling lately, about his meeting with the President before the Iraq invasion, where Bush denied there would be any casualties. He just didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to believe it.

That really scares me. If you don't want feedback, get out of public service.

[minstrel70.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong about the Woodward Bush quote, and am prepared to be corrected, but it runs in my mind that the context of it was a question about advisers cautioning him that the "Axis of Evil" verbiage in his SOTU address was too harsh.

I haven't read the book, but it does bring up an interesting point. Both Woodward and O'Reilly have asked the KE04 campaign for a Kerry interview, which to date has been denied them. So far, Kerry has only done "friendlies" -- Couric, et al. He hasn't been much more forthcoming with explanations than the President. I think it's a symptom of presidential politics more than a specific flaw of either man. But that's just my two cents.

As for Bush insulating himself from contrary opinions, I'm sure he's aware of the polls, and knows that he doesn't have 100% support, even if that's what he sees at his rallies.

Campaign rallies aren't meant to be fora for political debate, anyway -- they're meant to energize the supporters. Now, having been to a number of Bush '88 and Bush '92 events where dissenters were allowed in, I would have to disagree with the campaigns tactic on this one basis: nothing energizes the party faithful like a handful of hecklers being shot down by the candidate, or out-heckled by the mass of supporters. So perhaps BC04 ought to let a few in after all.

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

Actually, the point I took away from your anecdote is that there are assholes and petty tryants all across the political spectrum.

And are you sure that all the Republican rallies in question are private fund-raisers, and that none of them took place on public land? According to that article, it sounds like those people were being arrested in public spaces.

[minstrel70.livejournal.com]

My point was that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and it's not only possible to be denied access even to a public event where protesters' rights aren't in question, it's actually not uncommon. I have no idea what the Secret Service response to us would have been, since we left before Gore arrived with the main Secret Service contingent (the few who were there in advance had more pressing concerns).

I would need to read up on it further to say anything with certainty, but I do know that for the past several weeks, Bush's events have been pretty much exclusively large ones, in large arenas (football stadia and the like). Likewise, the legality of excluding dissenters from a public event isn't clear. Perhaps those persons supplying the anecdotal evidence should take ceebeegee's suggestion and sue, if only to establish a legal precedent.