Features

Jeanette X · #1

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/...rylist=orlocal

Teachers T-shirt protest draws national attention
10/18/2004, 12:03 a.m. PT
The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The ousting of three Southern Oregon teachers from a Bush campaign rally last week has drawn the attention of national Democratic Party officials.

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Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe pointed to the incident to charge that the Republicans are putting unprecedented restrictions on who can attend the president's campaign rallies. The three women were ordered, under threat of arrest, to leave the president's rally in Central Point. They said a volunteer objected to a statement on their T-shirts, "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

McAuliffe called the action "beyond outrageous" and said there has never before been a presidential campaign that is so determined to "keep people away who have a different view."

"The president has stripped his events of anyone who might disagree with him, which is completely un-American," McAuliffe said in a conference call with reporters Sunday.

Tracey Schmitt, a Bush campaign spokeswoman, said no one on the campaign staff "can remember the incident or understand why they would have been removed unless there was reason to believe that they were disruptive or were planning to be disruptive."

Tonia Tong, a Medford schoolteacher who was one of the three women removed from the rally, also participated in the conference call. She said the trio had agreed to remain quiet during the event and had successfully passed three security checkpoints.

But she said a volunteer helping with security stopped one of the three women, Janet Voorhies, when she tried to go to the bathroom.

The volunteer told her they were no longer welcome and would have to leave the event. The women said they were escorted out of the Central Point fairgrounds by police officers and threatened with arrest if they did not comply

Jeanette X · #2

That was meant to say "controversy". I really wish Rog would fix the post edit function.

mburbank · #3

Stuff like this has happened all over the country, and the W Campaign always says "Can't imagine why", "It was a mistake", "There must have been some reason".

I think it's happpened enough it's obviously a pattern.

I think this insular strategy, apart from being unsettling, serves them poorly. Look at how unhinged W was during the debates. He lives in a world where he's unaware of the existence of opposition and can barely tolerate being questioned.

I don't think keeping a president quarantined from the opposition is good for their mental health.

Preechr · #4

From Andrew Sullivan:

WEAKNESS AND DOGMA: This insularity, of course, is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. So there are no deficits; or they do not matter. There has been no increase in domestic spending because the president's plans say so. There was no insurgency in Iraq, just a fgew 'dead-enders', And on and on. The reason Bush cannot name a mistake he has made is not because he is smart enough not to admit error in public. It's because he doesn't believe he has ever made a mistake. If you are God's instrument, how could you? And notice the only mistake that came to his mind: he allowed a few non-believers into his inner circle. You can be sure that won't happen again. I cannot be the only person of a conservative disposition in politics to be alarmed at this kind of blindness in a president. Most people become tempered by experience; they learn from their mistakes; they adapt and reflect and adjust. Not this president. If he is as sealed off from reality now, what will he be like if he's re-elected handily?