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Article Published: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
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jim spencer Free speech checked at the door
The man near the entrance of George Bush's nonpolitical, taxpayer-financed "town hall" meeting Monday stopped Karen Bauer and Leslie Weise. He directed the two Denver women toward a man in a smiley-face tie. "You've been ID'd," the second man told them. Bauer and Weise were amazed. Hidden under their business suits, the members of the group Denver Progressives wore T-shirts that said "Stop the lies." Along with another Denver Progressives member, Alex Young, they planned to expose the T-shirts as the president talked about Social Security. They reconsidered when smiley-face-tie guy said the Secret Service was coming to speak to them. Soon, a stocky man with a shaved head, an earpiece and a red lapel pin arrived. He never identified himself as a Secret Service agent, but he did have a message. "He said we were allowed to go in, but if we caused any problems, we'd be taken to jail," said Bauer, a 38-year-old marketing coordinator. Bauer and Weise will meet today with Secret Service officials to discuss their removal from the Bush meeting. "Freedom of speech, general assembly, they're all guaranteed under the Constitution," said Lon Garner, special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Denver district. "We are not an enforcement arm to the president other than security." Garner said his agents don't remove people from presidential gatherings unless they break the law. The Republican staff, on the other hand, may ask people to leave, Garner said. And like the Secret Service, they also wear lapel pins and earpieces. Garner said he understood that Republicans had two names on a "list." The GOP operatives actually targeted three people who might turn the president's carefully contrived "town hall" meeting into real democracy. More than an hour before the president arrived, Bauer, Weise and Young were ordered to leave the Wings Over the Rockies Museum. The stocky guy "grabbed me by the arm and spun me around," Bauer said. "We kept asking, 'Why is this happening?"' Young said. "The guy said, 'If the staff asks you to leave, you have to leave. This is a private event."' It wasn't. Bush's Denver appearance probably cost taxpayers tens of thousands in jet fuel, room rent and personnel. "This was an official White House event and not a political event," Colorado GOP executive director David Wardrop explained. Anyone with tickets could have attended, added assistant presidential press secretary Allen Abney. "The White House welcomes people exercising the right to free speech," he said. The facts beg to differ. Bauer, Weise and Young had tickets. None acted up. On Tuesday, Weise said a Secret Service spokesman told her that Republicans who asked to have her ejected from the supposedly nonpolitical event described her, Bauer and Young as "protest-type people" who were part of the "No Blood for Oil" group. Weise, a 39-year-old lawyer, is not sure such a group exists. She does, however, have a bumper sticker on her car containing those words. If that's what it's come down to in America, if a bumper sticker allows the Republican Party to bully you out of seeing the president of the United States, then George Bush and his GOP henchmen are living a lie. The president constantly claims freedom as God's gift to everyone. "We shouldn't be surprised when people are willing to take risks for freedom," Bush told GOP cheerleaders allowed to hear him speak in Denver. "Free societies are peaceful societies. Free societies are hopeful societies. Free societies are the best way to defeat the dark vision of the terrorists." They sure are, Mr. President. But societies that smother dissent are never free. Jim Spencer's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com. |
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