Secret Service Intrigue
One has to wonder what the real story is here. Three liberal activists showed up for the President's town hall meeting to discuss social security reform here in Denver only to be removed from the meeting. They claim that a secret service impersonator removed them. From the pages of today's Rocky Mountain News comes the story that one of the three showed up at a Colorado Young Republicans meeting last night and confronted the leader of the organization.
It must be frustrating to the Rocky that they are having to attend all of these events and cannot find their impersonator.
More frustrated is Karen Bauer, one of the three ousted activists. It seems the primary concern of the ousted three is to find this gentleman so they can sue the man for violation of their freedom of speech.
I certainly hope that when they finally find this gentleman that he has a few dollars in his bank account to make the whole endeavor worthwhile, and I can't help but believe that someone from the Rocky will be on the spot to cover the story.
posted by swpeterson9 @ 5:17 AM
4 Comments:
The "real story" here is the fascists who run the country and disallow any form of dissent to disturb "Dear Leader's" image of himself as a popular leader.
Bush has the lowest poll numbers of any re-elected president, post WWII>
In a democracy, one doesn't have to prove one's loyalty to a politician before one has the opportunity to hear him or her speak. Especially when the forum is paid for by ALL American taxpayers, conservatives AND liberals.
But this isn't a democracy anymore. It's a Republican one-party system, corrupt as any entity that disallows dissent.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
See Tom DeLay. Bush's best buddy.
The stench is overwhelming.
White House weighs in on ouster
Bush aide: Belief someone plans to disrupt is enough
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
April 28, 2005
The White House said Wednesday that simply a belief that someone intends to disrupt a presidential event is enough to get the person removed.
Addressing the ouster of three people from a presidential speech last month in Denver, Press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday, "If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave."
The White House press office did not return calls seeking elaboration on McClellan's remarks, which were made during the daily press briefing.
Since the incident March 21, White House spokesmen have repeatedly refused to say whether the man who forcibly removed the three in Denver, because of a bumper sticker, was following White House policy.
McClellan would respond only by saying that a volunteer thought they "were coming to the event to disrupt it."
Unlike campaign events, which are deemed private and therefore could legally limit protesters, Bush's Social Security speech at the Wings over the Rockies Museum was an official White House event funded by the taxpayers.
It was open to any member of the public who obtained a ticket from Congressman Bob Beauprez.
Because it was a public event, considerable debate has erupted over whether it was legal to bar people over their political speech.
The controversy started when Alex Young, Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise, members of the political activist group Denver Progressives, were bounced from the event by a man who looked and acted like a Secret Service agent.
The three say they were told by the Secret Service in Denver that the man admitted to ousting them solely because they arrived in a car bearing a "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker.
The Secret Service is investigating the man on possible criminal charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent.
He was wearing a dark suit, earpiece and lapel pin.
The White House and the Secret Service know the man's name but have declined to reveal it.
The White House has described him only as a volunteer.
Dan Recht, an attorney for the three, calls their removal a violation of their First Amendment rights, because they were punished even though they had done nothing inappropriate.
McClellan's repeated statements that the three have "acknowledged that they were coming to the event to disrupt it," as he put it on Wednesday, also have raised questions from reporters about what constitutes disruption in the White House view.
The three said they considered, and rejected, showing T-shirts with the slogan "Stop the Lies."
They have denied any intent to make noise or disrupt the event.
Meanwhile, Lon Garner, the Secret Service agent in charge in Denver, said he never told the three that the man was "a Republican Party staffer."
Instead, he said the man was "a member of the Republican staff host committee."
Asked who was on that host committee, Garner declined to say. Rachael Sunbarger, spokeswoman for the Colorado Republican Party, said, "The White House is the host committee."
Sunbarger has said that the tiny staff of the Colorado Republican Party had nothing to do with the March 21 event, or the ouster.
On Tuesday, Jay Bob Klinkerman, chairman of the Colorado Young Republicans, was identified by Bauer as one of three people involved in stopping her and Weise at the gate.
The two women say that Klinkerman told them they were waiting for the Secret Service, and then the apparent agent appeared.
Klinkerman said he did not identify the man as Secret Service.
I saw this story when it first came out, and I did think about linking it since it does open other questions. Since the Secret Service is investigating, it is very likely that we will learn more about what really happened.
I do find some other items interesting in this story. This story gives the often repeated description of our impersonator as wearing a dark suit, ear piece and lapel pin. What exactly was the logo on that lapel pin? My guess is it was probably a Young Republicans logo or something similar. If I was trying to coordinate an event, I would also use a radio and earpiece. It is quite common at events I attend nowadays.
Another interesting aspect to this story is the fact that none of these three people thought to ask this gentleman for his identification. If he refused to provide his identification it should have been an easy tip off to these three that they were being conned by an impostor. I was not at the event, but I can't begin to believe that the Secret Service did not have total control of all the entrances and exits and that there was no one in authority readily available to verify this gentleman's identity.
The story gives the impression that the three were forcibly removed from the building. Wouldn't an altercation within the building or even in the parking lot have attacked the attention of the Secret Service or the police?
If I was Ms. Imse, I would be asking myself what is wrong with this story. I would also be looking for witnesses to the event, and I would be asking the three activists to clear up some of these missing details.
Somewhere in the middle of these two sides of the story lies the truth, and we will probably find out which way it leans soon enough. After all, we have a reporter, a lawyer and a Democratic U.S. Congressman seeking the truth for these three people.
can i get more info?
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