as we pointed out yesterday, the spinmeisters are working overtime to put a “fair and balanced” patina on the arrest of cindy sheehan compared to mrs. beverly “then you are an idiot, copper” young’s polite ejection from the capitol chamber minutes before the snooze of the union speech on tuesday.
we mentioned we heard squeaky abrams on the abrams report mention the two events as if they were both equally ridiculous and obstrusive to the women’s freedoms. we now have squeaky’s transcript, and it’s even worse than we remembered.
more after the jump.
it’s not bad enough that he openswith the episode of beverly young being asked to leave, as if that in itself was a travesty of justice, and mockery of a travesy of a mockery of first amendment rights.
but he then went on to also (belatedly) mention cindy sheehan, minimizing her ordeal and likening it to ms. young’s:
apparently they thought she was violating a federal statute that can keep demonstrators out of the capitol building. she wasn`t the only one. anti-war activist cindy sheehan whose son casey was killed in iraq wore a shirt that said 2245 dead, how many more, referring to the number of americans killed in iraq so far. she was charged with unlawful conduct.
however, what squeaky failed to mention was that, whereas mrs. young was asked to leave, cindy was forcibly removed, cuffed, arrested, booked, and held for four hours.
squeaky ended with this plea to common sense, fraternity, liberty, and the american way:
what we won’t agree on, is that it’s ok for repubbbs who support the troops to be given a pass on harrassment, but critics of the war should be treated as criminals and taken away. and three guesses who got her argument heard on the floor of congress the next day?
[ed. note: if there’s only two women involved, aren’t three guesses is a little over the top?]
the nytimes, whose headline “two t-shirts, two messages and two capitol ejections” adds fuel to the “hey, it’s a bi-partisan snafu!” fire, points out that mrs. young’s congressman husband bill went straight to the top:
it’s nice to have friends in high places.
we think it’s ridiculous for the media to equate the two events. though the precipitating apparel might be the same (100% cotton), the outcomes, and even the processes getting to the outcomes, and motivation behind those processes are the are drastically different.
though cnn points out that “young was asked to leave but not arrested,” their story paints the picture with the same “ain’t life tough for both sides” brush (we do admit, however, cnn describes how sheehan is considering legal action).
several commenters on our site have opined that mrs. young’s ejection was plotted, planned, and planted. we are not that paranoid. yet.
and true, charges were dropped against ms. sheehan, and apologies were offered to both women.
but we do think the over-reaction to ms. sheehan, when compared to the lack of legal action by the capitol police (even when mrs. young called them idiots), shows the mind-set of a concentrated push against administration critics versus the kid-glove treatment of people married to congressfolk.
and even worse, the balancing act of bi-partisan baloney, trying to equate the two events, is yet another example of the corporate top-down media de-emphasizing the facts that are damaging to the administration.
in our admittedly-cursory search, we could only find one media outlet, the madison wisconsin capital times, which mentioned the inequality of the two ejections:
sheehan, who caused no ruckus, was arrested not because she engaged in “unlawful conduct.” rather, by all accounts, she was arrested because of what her t-shirt said and, by extension, because of what she believes.
that makes this a most serious matter. rep. pete stark, the california democrat who is one of the senior members of the house, is right when he said that sheehan’s arrest by officers he refers to as “the president’s gestapo” tells us a lot more about george bush and the sorry state of our basic liberties in the midst of the president’s open-ended “war on terror” than anything that was said in the state of the union address. “it shows he still has a thin skin,” stark said.
it also shows that the father of the constitution, james madison, was right when he warned that, in times of war, the greatest danger to america would not be foreign foes but presidents and their minions, who would abuse the powers of the executive branch with the purpose of “subduing the force of the people.”
in fact, we found this sfchron column by debra saunders that seems to think it’s only natural for the wives of congresspeople to get special treatment:
duh. she’s not a repubbblican.
