Won’t Get Fooled Again: The president, protests and profanity

[Algorem]

http://www.freetimes.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=3187&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0&POSTNUKESID=312825bf9083d3869808433ba02e3a90

Chatter: Won’t Get Fooled Again: The president, protests and profanity - City Chatter goes to war.

At first, it seems like a potential disaster. The scuttlebutt on the floor of the grand ballroom inside the Renaissance Hotel is that the White House plans to suppress risky questions. There’s talk that the administration doesn’t want to play by the City Club’s “open forum” rules and has hand-picked friendly Republicans to stand by the microphones. After all, when President Bush is caught off guard he has a tendency to invent new words or mash up old cliches with Who lyrics.


“We suspected he’d manipulate the Q&A,” says Walt Nicholes, a member of Cleveland Peace Action. “We were promised there would be a lottery, that eight people would be randomly selected to ask the president questions. We learned just now, that has been changed. The president gets to pick. But he’s not going to see anyone past the front tables. Most of those are Republican-run, corporate tables.”

And as the room begins to fill, something else becomes apparent — state Republicans are snubbing their president. There is no sign of Ken Blackwell or Jim Petro or Mike DeWine. Are they distancing themselves during an election year, when Bush’s approval rating is lower than Nixon’s at the height of Watergate?

“I wouldn’t read anything into it,” non-answers Ohio GOP Chairman Bob Bennett...



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[sinkingfeeling]

1. Probably more true than any MSM report. Thanks!