Secret Service Not Coddling Hecklers

[reprehensor]

(Previously posted in LBN.)

Secret Service Not Coddling Hecklers

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A08

COLMAR, Pa., Sept. 9 -- Secret Service agents are famous for their willingness to take a bullet for the president. Less famous is their willingness to take out a heckler for the president.

Officially, the Secret Service does not concern itself with unarmed, peaceful demonstrators who pose no danger to the commander in chief. But that policy was inoperative here Thursday when seven AIDS activists who heckled President Bush during a campaign appearance were shoved and pulled from the room -- some by their hair, one by her bra straps -- and then arrested for disorderly conduct and detained for an hour.

After Bush campaign bouncers handled the evictions, Secret Service agents, accompanied by Bush's personal aide, supervised the arrests and detention of the activists and blocked the news media from access to the hecklers.

snip

One uniformed Secret Service agent complained to a colleague that "the press is having a field day" with the disruption -- and the agents quickly clamped down. Journalists were told that if they sought to approach the demonstrators, they would not be allowed to return to the event site -- even though their colleagues were free to come and go. An agent, who did not give his name, told one journalist who was blocked from returning to the speech that this was punishment for approaching the demonstrators and that there was a "different set of rules" for reporters who did not seek out the activists.

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Pretty fascist, if you ask me.

[lapfog_1]

1. One of the many reasons the press is so on board with

GOPSPIN is the GOP's constant threat to remove access. And ALL
reporters know that if they can't get to the people in power to
ask questions, they have no story, and hence, little value as
journalists.

I think that Chris Matthews was very direct when he was on
The Daily Show... he basically said that it became difficult
for him to book republican guests because of his "Michelle"
incident and the "Zell" interview. Which is likely why right
after that, Chris went right back to being "Tweety" (at least
to me) by doing all the repuke talking points on every show.
Kiss and make up time for him.

[rfranklin]

2. They've gone from Secret Service to Secret Police....

It's obvious that to keep their jobs, they now have to sign a loyalty oath. And this type of thuggishness comes on direct orders from the Bushistas whose models for politics are great leaders like Pinochet and Generalissimo Franco.