We’ve seen Bush loyalty oaths and people getting arrested for wearing Kerry t-shirts to see the president speak, but the Bush campaign continues to push the envelope.
This week, as Jesse Taylor noticed, BC04 removed ticket-holders from a Bush event because their clothing included a pro-choice message.
Campaign workers removed the Millers — Marvin, Barbara and Theresa — from Wendler Arena on Thursday minutes before the president’s motorcade rolled up.
The Midland clan’s offense?
Barbara Miller, a 50-year-old chemist for Dow Chemical Co., had carried in a rolled-up T-shirt emblazoned with a pro-choice slogan.
“I thought I might be cold,” she said of the NARAL Pro-Choice America message on the cotton shirt, size large. “I use it for running. I never even thought about the message. I just wanted to see my president.”
This really isn’t funny anymore.
When asked to explain why law-abiding ticket-holders had to be removed from the event, a campaign spokesperson said “attendees suspected of aiming to spoil” the show had to go.
In other words, if you’re fortunate enough to get through the ideology checks and receive a ticket to see the president in person, and then go through security like everyone else, you may still be subject to “fashion profiling” — your attire tells Bush officials all they need to know about whether you might try to disrupt the event. Amazing.
Barbara Miller said a young male campaign worker confiscated the offending apparel upon the family’s 4:30 p.m. arrival. He returned with two others and asked the trio leave about an hour later.
“They obviously were searching for us,” said Marvin, 53, also a Dow chemist. “And they came for us.
“I was probably voting for Kerry before. Now I’m 100 percent sure. Maybe I’ll start campaigning for him. Maybe I’ll start fund-raising.”
He said the person who took his wife’s T-shirt told them, “We don’t accept any pro-choice, non-Republican paraphernalia.”
It was the same young male worker, a female campaign worker and a security guard who demanded the family leave section 28 as they sat chatting a couple of hundred feet behind Bush’s stage, he said.
The young man accused them of “smuggling in T-shirts,” he said. The guard then grabbed their three tickets from Barbara Miller’s hand, ripped them up “violently” and told her, “They’re no good anymore,” she said.
“This is democracy under Bush,” she added flatly.
You know what might make Barbara Miller feel better? A hilarious new t-shirt that my friend Dr. Laniac came up with. Take a look.