Got this from Kos. You’ve probably read by now that Cindy Sheehan was forcibly ejected from the SOTU for wearing a shirt that said “2,245 Dead - How Many More??”
But check this out:
The wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young said she was ejected during President Bush’s State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt that said, “Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom,” a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Beverly Young said she was sitting in the front row of the House gallery Tuesday night when she was approached by someone who told her she needed to leave, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
After reluctantly agreeing, she said, she argued with several officers in an outside hallway.
“They said I was protesting,” she said in a telephone interview with the newspaper Tuesday. “I said, ‘Read my shirt, it is not a protest.’ They said, ‘We consider that a protest.’ I said, ‘Then you are an idiot.’”
February 1st, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Isn’t this sort of… oh, I don’t know… illegal? Now, I’ll admit I’m no real fan of Cindy Sheehan - I think she lost a lot of her legitimacy when she apparently took on every lfet wing cause, started doing all the interviews, meeting with Chavez, et cetera. I blame the media for much of this, but I believe Sheehan’s protest would be a lot more effective if she stayed on her one original message and simply pounded away at that.
That said, what the crap is the deal, here? How do they think they can even get away with any of this? The most memorable in my mind was the peace activists being ejected from a mall a couple years back, basically for the same reason. Is no one else outraged that freedom of speech is dying? Why isn’t the media freaking out over this?
February 1st, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Very revealing…the only way you could possibly consider “Support our troops” to be a protest would be if you felt the administration is not.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:16 pm
In the article it quotes Rep. Young as saying “This is not acceptable” in regards to his wife’s ejection. I wonder if he thinks Ms. Sheehan’s ejection was also unacceptable.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:17 pm
What goes around, comes around, maybe the Republicans will start to understand that the Mayberry Machiavellis aren’t as benign as they thought!
c.
2243
February 1st, 2006 at 4:18 pm
# Thad Says:
February 1st, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Very revealing…the only way you could possibly consider “Support our troops” to be a protest would be if you felt the administration is not.
Bang on. In my mind, it implies that either wearing any ’slogans’ was to be removed, or the people who removed her are inbred knuckle-draggers.
Not exactly a good look either way, is it.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
I think that t-shirt was a protest. Bererly Young had a t-shirt that clearly claimed that we have freedoms. That must have been sarcasm, and everyone knows that Sarcastic t-shirts are a form of protest.
Getting back to reality, perhaps they consider any t-shirt with writing on it to be a form of protest because it will distract the President from reading the script. He might accidentally read the wrong thing out.
Or did they just eject every woman wearing t-shirts because the Frat-boy would have started jumping up and down and screaming something unintelligible about wet t-shirt contests.
Z.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:19 pm
I suppose I should elaborate. Glenn Greenwald handled it well, and I really have nothing to add to what he said at (http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/learning-from-dear-leader.html) but for the quick rundown, a prayer group was threatened by security under some statute referring to activities inside the Capitol, and the statute was found to be unconstitutional.
But really, what good is it now? They quashed the dissent where it would have mattered, and now the opposing message is gone. Sure, they can sue or whatever, but the media (for some unfathomable reason) doesn’t seem concerned with the silencing of their very purpose.
And to that, I can only say, “WTF?”
February 1st, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Here’s what’s bugging me: Sheehan was charged with a misdemeanor, and I’m willing to bet the charges will be dropped as soon as her lawyer talks to law enforcement about it. But even if Sheehan spends no time behind bars, or pays no fine, the administration has gotten what they wanted: dissent removed from the building. It’s much harder (not impossible, just harder) to argue to a judge that your civil liberties have been violated when there’s no actual criminal proceeding against you. “You aren’t actually being prosecuted? Then what’s your problem?” But the violation remains. Same with Mrs. Young. The administration could theoretically supress all the free speech it wanted by holding protestors just long enough for them to miss the event they wanted to protest, and then saying “Oh, sorry, we made a mistake.”
February 1st, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Thinking an officer is an idiot is also considered protesting.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:28 pm
‘”She was not ejected from the gallery. She did leave on her own,” said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider, who said she could not provide further information.’
So, because she was asked to leave, and left they didn’t do anything wrong. I guess that means that if she hadn’t left they would just have left her?
I hate this kind of verbal parsing that is encouraged so much these days. Of course I long for the days when you could call a spade a primitive earth moving implement and it was a joke.
Z.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
I think bears mentioning that Cindy Sheehan wasn’t simply ejected — she was handcuffed, physically removed, placed under arrest, fingerprinted, and put into a cell for several hours.
Mrs. Young, from what I can gather, was convinced to leave the gallery under her own power, and allowed to remain in the hallway.
Neither of them should have been removed for wearing T-shirts, but let’s not pretend pro-Bush and anti-Bush “protests” were treated equally.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:32 pm
To tell you the truth, I would expect that the guards/capitol police/whatever were under orders to remove anybody wearing a T-shirt carrying a political message of any stripe. I wouldn’t be surprised at all that they’re told not to try to parse messages or decide on their meaning, just get them out of the gallery, especially since this is televised. That’s something of an overreaction, yes — a more just and less paranoid administration would only be policing for obscenity since there are TV cameras and children, oh god, the children, present. However…why Sheehan was booked and Mrs. Young not is much more worrisome.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Or maybe…
“they” wanted to draw attention away from the fact that Sheehan was being singled out (as a protestor) and “prove” that “they” don’t tolerate any form of individual expression — whether from the left OR wrong side of the aisle…
/a
February 1st, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Short version:
BUSH TO AMERICA: JUST SHUT UP.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Greenbandit said: “The administration could theoretically supress all the free speech it wanted by holding protestors just long enough for them to miss the event they wanted to protest, and then saying “Oh, sorry, we made a mistake.”
No doubt, but that been a standard tactic in police toolkits for years now. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been arrested during a protest, held until the protest was over, charged with a bunch of nonsense, and then had all charges dropped the second I show up in court. Ok, I guess I can. Three. But I really can’t tell you the number of times I’ve witnessed it happen to others.
February 1st, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Good.
This is a mild and acceptable version of Ann Coulter’s desire to kill John Walker Lindh to let know liberals know that we can be killed too. Real change happens when folks in a position to do something feel the suffering that others feel, even just a little bit. A little insensitive, perhaps, but Beverly Young was happily not hurt. Others have not been so lucky.
February 1st, 2006 at 6:02 pm
I know this sounds strange but I think they did the right thing in ejecting Mrs. Young! The Senate has a law that no one can can carry protest signs (and this includes clothing) into the Senate galley. Presumably, this is to keep the Senate from turning into a circus. So if they are going to eject Ms. Sheehan then to be impartial they should eject Mrs. Young.
Now as to the validity of this law …
February 1st, 2006 at 6:19 pm
The primary damage done in Sheehan’s case was by the press repeating she caused a ‘disturbance’. This leaves the impression she had done something loud or physical. I doubt the majority of Americans have any idea it was just a T-shirt the White House doesn’t like.
(And of course the suppression of free speech in itself is a horror.)
February 1st, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Greenbandit, what the NY police always told us at protests was “you might beat the rap but you won’t beat the ride”
(which might include hours on a heavily air-conditioned or overheated bus, no food, insults, transportation to remote holding areas in unsanitary conditions with no seats or toilets or access to medicine, tampons or water, misinformation, threats, and other jollies).
judicial system AS punishment! neato!
February 1st, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Personally, I think what Cindy Sheehan tried to do was pretty stupid. In my mind, if she had remained professionally dressed and sat in the front row as a stoic observer, she would have more effectively drawn attention to her cause than by pulling the Michael Stipe shirt0swap protest trick. I think it could have possibly unnerved Chimpy, and made a much more classy point that she had even been granted, and earned a seat in the gallery in the first place. Instead, she played into type and just acted out what all the wingnuts would have expected her to do in the first place. She could have worn her protest Tee to all the news cameras afterwards.
February 1st, 2006 at 8:27 pm
The fate of Ms. Sheehan and Ms. Young reminds me of that famous quote in “Dr. Strangelove”. Gentlemen, no fighting in the war room.! There’ll be no freedom of expression in the Senate. Thanks you for your ulimate motherly war sacrifice, and by the way are those cuffs too tight? Did you enjoy your stay in the housegow while Bush made more things up? Have a nice day…
February 1st, 2006 at 9:15 pm
They must have suspected this woman’s “support the troops” message was sincere, rather than mindless, Bushie rhetoric.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:21 pm
Well, now the police have dropped charges and apologized. We’ll see whether the story becomes suppression of free speech or stays with ‘disruption’.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:27 am
Statement from U.S. Capitol Police:
As the Department reviewed the incident, it was determined that while officers acted in a manner consistent with the rules of decorum enforced by the Department in the House Gallery for years, neither Mrs. Sheehan’s manner of dress or initial conduct warranted law enforcement intervention. The USCP also asked Mrs. Beverly Young, to leave the gallery because of a T-shirt she was wearing. Mrs. Young did not return to the Gallery so there was no need for further police action. Neither guest should have been confronted about the expressive T-shirts.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:45 am
I think most of the above comments overlook several key facts of both incidents. First, everyone knows T-shirts are out … style is taking over, and it’s no good having a bunch of T-shirted folk running around the Capitol. Second, most of the accounts of the story ignore a crucial fact: it was the FASHION police that removed Sheehan and Young. This, I believe, puts the situation in a far different light, and certainly makes the actions of Washington’s elite force of fashion Polizei much more understandable. See, context is everything! Of course the liberal media wouldn’t tell you that it was the FASHION police! That wouldn’t fit their subversive Marxist agenda.
February 2nd, 2006 at 8:39 am
Check the statement from Young’s husband, the Fla Congressman:
[Fla. Rep. CW Bill] Young said he wouldn’t be so mad if it were just Sheehan. “I totally disagree with everything *she* stands for,” he said. But by removing his wife, Gainer’s officers clearly “acted precipitously,” Young said.
It’s as if some people believe the Constitution protects only the rights of real Americans.
Full story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020100348.html
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:45 am
Hey BFJ,
If it was just a fashion issue, why was one person arrested and charged with a crime, while the other person was just sent out to the hall until class was over?
However, if you are just being silly by mocking the rightwing knuckledraggers then … nevermind.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:06 pm
That’s one set of contrasting events in the news today. Here’s another, involving life and death.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Yes, I was being completely serious regarding their removal by Washington’s fashion police. The obvious lack of such an organization indicates that my above comments are likely satire.
February 2nd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
If you think the Fashion Police don’t exist, then you haven’t been watching the E! network!
February 2nd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
How can you say that there isn’t a fashion police? You haven’t me my wife. She is the commissioner of that subversive Marxist organization.
February 2nd, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Has anyone here read Mark Crispin Miller’s “Fooled Again?” The book’s endpieces include a couple of anecdotes from women who attempted to protest at one of Chimpy’s campaign stops during the election. Their accounts of what happened are pretty scary.
February 3rd, 2006 at 3:06 am
Brüno is, like, ze only fashion polizei to ever go to ALABAMA!
February 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 am
Moral of story:
In Bush Jr’s America, speaking truth is considered protest.