Lowering the bar

March 5, 2007

Following up on Friday’s item about the Denver Three, we learned some important details late in the day. To briefly recap, two years ago, three law-abiding citizens were escorted out of a public event, dealing with a public policy issue, on public property, featuring public officials, because someone didn’t like their bumper sticker. The Bush gang insisted ever since that those responsible were “volunteers,” but in sworn depositions on Friday, we learned that White House officials made the call.

“We found what we were looking for all along,” Martha Tierney, attorney for the Denver Three, said after the depositions. “And now our goal is to find out if this is a White house policy.”

Apparently, it was.

A former White House official who ordered three activists expelled from a 2005 Denver public forum with President Bush says it was White House policy to exclude potentially disruptive guests from Bush’s appearances nationwide. […]

“If there’s an indication somebody’s primary intent is to cause trouble, we are looking to avoid trouble,” said Atkiss, who now serves as a U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection chief of staff.

“If it became obvious and apparent somebody is there to create a fuss, there was an effort made to ensure that didn’t happen,” Atkiss said in a phone interview.

Scott McClellan offered a similar take two years ago, when he told reporters that the Denver Three were ejected out of concern “that these three individuals were coming to the event solely for the purpose of disrupting it.”

Two points to consider. First, this doesn’t make any sense. Second, if Atkiss is right and this is a formal White House policy, it’s worth finding out exactly who came up with it.

On the prior, the notion of giving people the bum’s rush preemptively is absurd. If the White House advance team and the Secret Service want to remove people who are disrupting a presidential event, that’s perfectly reasonable. But this “policy” is intended to tackle some kind of pre-crime.

In the case of the Denver Three, these three were given free tickets to see the president. There was nothing wrong with their attire, they hadn’t said a discouraging word to anyone, and there was no disturbance. It didn’t matter, they had to go and were faced with possible arrest, despite literally not having done anything wrong. In other words, the White House policy is that you don’t need to disrupt an event to get thrown out; staffers merely have to believe you might cause trouble, based on nothing more than a bumper sticker. In a nation that takes free expression seriously, this is indefensible.

And then, of course, there are the specific guidelines used by the Bush gang. According to Atkiss, who was a Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of Advance at the time, the tactics used against the Denver Three were “White House policy.” Now it’s time to nail down who formulated this policy — and who signed off on it. Considering that it’s arguably illegal to forcibly remove law-abiding Americans from a public event on public property, it seems hard to believe the Deputy Director of Advance would have come up with this on his own.

So, which of his higher-ups came up with it?

Is it too much to ask someone in the White House press corps to bring this up at Tony Snow’s next briefing?

Now it’s time to nail down who formulated this policy — and who signed off on it.

I predict a stonewall, even if one of the delicate flowers of the White House press corps obsequiously brings it up. Assuming they won’t answer, then the responsibility goes up to the top, to the Deciderer-in-Chief. In which case we add it to the articles of impeachment.

  • This kinda reminds me of that Tom Cruise movie, “Minority Report” where Tom’s character would arrest people before any wrongdoing based on psychic information about the future. Its great for a plot for a fictional movie but bad public policy for the reality-based world.

  • And then shouldn’t somebody sue the pants off of the RNC to recoup the expenses for these obvious campaign trips.

  • Hmmm. I may have to retake my Con Law final. I’m sure I put down that prior restraint of speech was unconstitutional, and that political speech was the most protected kind. I must have been sleeping off too many vodka tonics when the First Amendment was amended; I just totally missed it happening. Did it get much news coverage?

  • The typical Bush man intellect: don’t confuse me with the law: I know I’m right despite whatever the law says, or for that matter, what our prized Constitutional rights happen to be. -Kevo

    p.s. as we have already noticed, this cabal in the WH believe that if you differ in your opinions and outlook from their grand narrative, you must have broken some law some where. What hogwash these hacks have given us good common American citizens.

  • the notion of giving people the bum’s rush preemptively is absurd.

    No more absurd than attacking Iraq preemptively

  • Zeitgeist (Re #4)- apparently, there are now only First Amendment Zones here in the US. I think that the country got this because it was on double secret probation, and someone egged W’s limo after they stole the 2000 election. Maybe it was an add-on to Bush v. Gore decision from the SCOTUS.
    If someone knows the real story, let us know. It may have something to do with very little rioting in the streets.

  • Hmmm. I may have to retake my Con Law final. I’m sure I put down that prior restraint of speech was unconstitutional,
    Comment by Zeitgeist

    🙂 I’m pretty sure you got it right, Zeitgeist. In the case of Walter Solchznik vs The Diner, it was pointed out that “the Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint, dear. I’m finishing my coffee.”

  • This is a great example of how constitutional law is supposed to work and just how smart some of the judges have been up there (of course, there have been others….). A law professor of mine who was a former judge used to always ask us what seems like the “right” outcome (in other words, use your common sense)? Usually and hopefully, the law will be what is the common sensical approach.

    That applies perfectly here – does it seem right that the President should be ejecting people before they say anything? Of course not, that’s exactly what “prior restraint” is. You can’t stop somebody from saying something before/prior to their actually saying it.

    The problem, Zeitgeist and Dale, is that it appears to the Prez and his staff that are drinking the vodka tonics (a nasty drink I might add – doesn’t anyone just drink wine from a box anymore?)….

  • “Is it too much to ask for the press corps to bring this up to Tony Snow?”

    Unfortunately, yes. The current press corps really lacks something—some sort of zest to discover. My hope is that they’ll start hammering on Snow with the question, “Is the US willing to initiate a nuclear war?” in connection with Iran. Let’s blow away the smoke and vagueness of “All options [except diplomacy] are on the table.”

  • This particular case seems straightforward, but it raises some interesting questions. Let’s say some rightwing nutbags had disrupted the previous dozen appearances of a Democratic president. People with no history of such tactics are used each time, in order to get through security. On the thirteenth appearance, what should the policy be?

  • Reminds me of the scenes from the Godfather (or GF II or III) where all the Mafiosi are attending a wedding and the feds are there taking pictures of their cars and the people. Bush’s minions have to have been doing that regularly, eyeballing every car that came in for evidence of ideological disagreement and then radioing ahead until the “future perps” could be shown the door preemptively. I bet they get off on playing cops and robbers like this, sans robbers. I wonder how many times similar things have happened to people who just threw up their hands and walked away.

  • Given the historical significance of who in the administration wants to stifle free speech, CB, I’d have to bet the farm on Cheney as being the culprit behind this one. He’s the only one in the herd who seems obsessed with “pre-crime” prevention—and he possesses a dichotomous fear of being identified as the source of comments (as seen just last week)….

  • I’m in the same boat as Zeitgeist. Thank goodness for the ABA’s grading requirements!

    But I think there could be a simple and amusing solution to this sort of crap: Slap anti-Bush/ReThuglican stickers on any car within a certain radius of a ReThug sponsored event. It would be fun watching the SS goons eject all of the attendees.

  • tAiO –
    Brilliant!
    Have distractions posted at every stop light & stop sign, and others quietly sticking on the signs.
    Plus, think of all the fun the wingers will have trying to get the stickers off!

    In a similar vein, I was leaving my son’s school the other morning, and from a distance I spotted one of those “W” round red, white & blue stickers on a mini-van in front of me. As I moved closer I saw that it actually said “Worst president ever.”
    Made my morning.

  • It was probably the outgrowth of Cheney’s “if there’s a one percent policy” with regard to preemptive war. I think the guys involved with monitoring the crowds were probably hired under the specifice job description of Bubble Maintainence.

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