Americans really should be able to be in the same vicinity as the President, regardless of what’s on their clothing.
I recently noted the ordeal with Nicole and Jeff Rank, who were literally arrested for attending a Bush speach while wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. (A judge later threw out the trespassing charges.)
As it turns out, these kinds of incidents happen way too often. Dan Froomkin, for example, noted yesterday that Jayson Nelson, a county supervisor in Appleton, Wis., was thrown out of a presidential event, despite having a ticket, because — you guessed it — his t-shirt wasn’t supportive of Bush.
Nelson attended a John Kerry for President rally in Fond du Lac earlier in the day before taking his spot in line outside the Bush campaign venue. The event was part of a daylong Bush campaign bus tour through eastern Wisconsin, including the Fox Cities.
Nelson said he was ejected after being caught sporting a T-shirt endorsing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, though he said it was fully hidden beneath a heavy cotton button-down shirt. […]
Once exposed, the female election worker who singled Nelson out snatched the VIP ticket from his hand and called for police, he said.
“Look at his shirt! Look at his shirt!” Nelson recalled the woman telling the Ashwaubenon Public Safety officer who answered the call.
Nelson said the officer told him, “You gotta go,” and sternly directed him to a Secret Service contingent that spent seven or eight minutes checking him over before ejecting him from the property.
Once again, citizens in pro-Bush t-shirts can listen to the president speak; citizens in anti-Bush t-shirts have to be kept in a separate “zone,” away from the president, or face arrest and criminal charges. Americans are, apparently, no longer free to protest their president — even silently — anywhere near the man.