Gee, this isn't very nice. Mr. Bush is giving a nice speech about our wonderful country and a bunch of darned old protesters try to spoil everything. It's just like that nut from We Are Change yelling and screaming at Laura; some people just have no manners.

Difference is, I support people protesting or questioning Bush; we elected him, he works for us, it goes with the job description.

I just don't think it accomplishes much, nor is it necessary, to do the same thing to his wife and daughter.

I think my favorite part was when he said "We honor freedom of speech in this country"...as the protestor was dragged out...now that was GOOD shrubbie!

Why?

We did not elect Laura or Jenna Bush.

I believe public officials are answerable to the public; not necessarily, their spouses, children, parents, or other relatives.

No. Laura is part of the team, represents the Bush Administration and its policies in public and advises the president. Fair game.

She doesn't make policy, she doesn't sign anything into law...she is just there to smile pretty. I can't imagine why any woman would marry such a man, but I too have made a mistake in who I married....she isn't to blame and shouldn't be a target. I reserve all of my rage for her husband...but that's just me. I go for the target, not the whole circle.

And this happened in Virginia? Amazing!

I agree with you. Those that are elected are fair game. So are the ones they appoint to work around them. But spouses and children (even adult children) should be off limits unless they are out giving policy/campaign speeches.

Exactly...like the Cheney girls...targets...both of them!

I wish some people would have this attitude towards Michelle Obama.

Perhaps you should review Laura's page on the White House website. She is the witting, culpable and complicit accomplice of her lovely husband.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/

Oh no, she talks about education and parks, gasp! How dare a former teacher do that!
She is not making policy or even really advocating anything in particular besides increasing literacy. Her primary policy role in the WH has been as honorary chair of The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Nothing to do with war, the economy, gas prices or anything like that.
For that matter, I happen to think she's a nice and classy lady (stood up for M. Obama and everything). Give the lady a break and keep the venom to her husband.

Christine, from reading the article, it looks like only 9 of the most beligerant protesters were escorted out.

I agree that everyone of those protesters had a right to be there, but I also believe the protesters need to exercise restraint in their physical activity and the language they use (rushing the stage, yelling expletives in a crowd where children are present.)

I also agree with this position. If a family member is actively campaigning then they are fair game, otherwise they should be off limits.

Michelle Obama is giving speeches on behalf of her husband.

I was delighted at her defense of Michele, but on the whole I see Laura as the disingenuous, coy partner to her husband's crimes.



And for someone who is purportedly highly literate, why is it that her public utterances sound like a junior high book report?

Laura and their spawn have all spent time campaigning for Dubya.

So, how do you feel about the right wing's fifteen year and ongoing assault on Hillary Clinton?

I'm sure her husband and co. hired her speech writers. Is it any surprise he'd screw up something as simple as that?

When was Clinton NOT involved with serious policy?

What exactly do you think Laura and George talk about? National Book award winners? Recipes? Angelina's twins?

I can't believe the double standard here. We're suposed to refrain from reproaching the First Lady because she is promoted as the demure self-effacing shadow of her husband? I must have fallen into a time warp.

So are a lot of people.

She's not running for office. Neither are they, he is.

But no, let's dig up her senior thesis, written some time when Cyndi Lauper and Wham! were topping the charts. Yes that tells us a lot about what she thinks, today.

I don't mean what they talked about in private. I mean publicly. Her health care disaster. She was constantly with the public policy speeches about real stuff. She was always in the mix.

Well Laura is very much in the mix too. It's just that she is a Phyllis Schlafly First Lady evincing discretion, decorum and good etiquette. That certainly doesn't exempt her from criticism or from any responsibility for her husbands follies.

obviously we disagree.

Yep.

Here is a link to a video of the protesters at Monticello:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/04/b...o_n_110910.html

Looks like it was Code Pink, bless their dissenting little hearts.

No. Laura is part of the team, represents the Bush Administration and its policies in public and advises the president. Fair game.

I don't know that I've ever heard anyone attack Mrs. Obama personally. I have on the other hand heard many personal attacks on Mrs. Bush. If its wrong for one it's wrong for the other. I understand attacking someone for what they say during a campaign in public, but personal attacks are just not needed for spouses.

You havent heard the attacks on Michelle? Really?

I would say questioning her patriotism is a personal attack.

Because, first, to believe she sits and writes these on her own is naive. And, second, they are written in a simplistic fashion so they can be understood by the greatest number of people. I vaguely recall something about the average being written to the reading level of a sixth grader. I have assume it's much the same fot the White House.

That point about newspapers is especially sad, incidentally, because many newspaper people I've known have had the deepest appreciation for language and the delights of our vocabulary, but the point is repeatedly hammered home that the average reader doesn't want to have to consult a dictionary even once when reading an article. Not only does that give a great many readers far too little credit, it also assures the readers who are so limited have little incentive to improve.

I'm with Seeker and Christine on this one. And I thank Christine for being the one to note the irony (hypocrisy) of Bush touting First Amendment rights as the protesters were carried away.

In many cases, I might well even complain about protesters interrupting speeches and hearings. But this wasn't an instance of GWB attempting to answer questions and argue his POV. Rather, he was cynically claiming beliefs and principles for which he's repeatedly shown only disdain, contempt and/or ignorance. In that case, I'm all for point out the dishonesty.

I couldn't agree more. But they always seem to gravitated to personal attacks and character assassinations when they run out of solutions to issues, which is constantly for conservatives.

Yeah GW freedom of speech, just not so you can hear it.

he doesnt hear the people, so the people keep having to speak up louder and repeat themselves.

I'm so glad that for once Bush was forced to hear the scorn of the American people. I can't wait til he leaves office. He won't be in the security of his manufactured bubble for much longer.

As far as protesting members of the Bush family goes. Despite not being elected Laura has a spokesperson for Bush's agenda, both good and bad. Just off the top of my head I can recall Laura being vocal against the dictatorship in Burma, and suggested the lives of women have improved in Afghanistan. She's part of his public policy team. She's not making those statements without his permission. She should also be subjected to protesters and report that back to her husband.

Bush's daughters should be left alone. They have remained out of politics. Its not their fault who their parents are.

Cheney's family on the other hand are up to their neck in promoting Darth's policies, in one form or another.

But is that really what was going on or was it just local law enforcement removing unruly individuals?

My understanding was that there was a large number of protesters present, yet only 9 individuals were removed. In the story, it doesn't even mention whether the 9 individuals were anti-Bush protesters or whether they were Bush supports who became unruly.

I realize a cynic would assume the worst but....

bushs record with freedom of speech visa vi holding rallies only if you sign a loyalty oath, is abysmal


freedom of speech is the last thing he and his buds care about

People question her for statements she made while out campaigning for her husband. "For the first time in my adult life, I'm proud of my country." That will cause people to question where she is at. I kniw there were lame attempts to try and spin the statement, but words do mean things and it could be seen as a freudean slip. Mrs. Bush is attacked on this site and called many vile names. I know I've never heard Mrs. Obama called those things

is that the entire quote????? the correct quote????


this is rrmb, you wont get away with misquoting someone...


and when you look at the correct quote, you will see it means something different


and when I, a white man, looked at the entire quote, it never occurred to me to question it at all...but then i tend NOt to judge someone i couldnt possibly judge, a black woman in america

Bourgeois, you should be writing public statements for the undiscriminating and uncritical recitation by the First Lady; you seem to have a fine appreciation and respect for the delicacy of her position.

No, people are digging up a paper she wrote in undergrad, while mullets and Color Me Beautiful were still in style, and sitting around hoping for a non-existent tape of her saying "whitey".

What a load of bull.

Hell, its only the 4th of July weekend, where we celebrate the removal of a tyrannical hold on a free people. Now this clown has breached the Declaration, the Constitution and the Geneva convention along many other things. Protesters are just the beginning of his problems.

Odd, huh? Having kept protesters and for that matter, Democrats, literally out of his field of view and most often in cages for almost 8 years now just how is it that he now has occasion to comment publicaly in front of protesters that he respects freedom of speech? It just seems so staged. So convenient a white wash. By golly this is down right rehabilitative. His diligent SS and Homeland Security must have been given the holiday off!!

Anybody got pictures? Maybe it was some of the staff. Again.

Non sequitor for the day - or perhaps you just made a little mistake on the quote you used.

Unless I misread you, you agree with Seeker and Christine that the First Lady is above reproach.



And, according to you, in addition to being above reproach she relies on White House speech writers to assist her in talking down to the public in sixth grade level language.



And so, bourgeois, no non sequitur; you are clearly well-qualified to compose rhetoric on a sixth grade level for Mrs. Bush.

Please cite for me where I stated that Laura Bush is above reproach, or where someone else asserted she is above reproach, and I agreed with that.



Now, hoot, let's put some value on accuracy here, and retain some truth is scale and proportion, too. This isn't one of your 9.11 threads. Nor is it a Wayne Madsen article.

Not only did I not offer anything nearly so broad and sweeping as LB being "above reproach," later on a tangential matter I also offered a vague recollection - identified and qualified as such - about newspapers being directed to a sixth grade reading level. I further speculated - again, identified and qualified in this case as an assumption - that the White House (1. plays a larger role in crafting Laura Bush's messages than she does and (2. that they do so to a similar standard.

And, to remind you - as your mind appears to especially flustered today (have the fireworks upset you?) - this was offered in response to your query -



If it's your belief Laura in fact crafts those writings issued beneath her name, and that they are conveyed in simplistic terms because she is either a dolt, or assume most Americans to be, I invite you to offer those or other opinions, or remain silent. Instead, however, it appears you've chosen to pursue a personal agenda and natter on about me. And while you're certainly entitled to take that low road, too, I'm just going to have to insist you stick to the truth. On those frequent occasions you chose instead to rely upon hyperbole, distortion and mischaracterizing and misstating what I've written in a pathetic effort flail at me, I will point it out.



Oh, hoot, it almost seems as if you don't hold me, my level of intelligence or my skills in high regard. How ever am I going to get to sleep tonight, what with my worry and hurt?

But it's interesting, isn't it? For the high crime of having had the temerity to express my opinion - something I did politely and utterly without rancor or name-calling, in response you have desperately scrambled about to find irrelevant hooks from which to hang some insults. Why, you're only a Senate hearing away from qualifying for a prominent position in the Bush White House! Alas, my wife is not a covert CIA operative, so you will have to pursue other avenues to punish me for independent thought.

Tell that to Hillary and Chelsea. And Jimmy Carter's family.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Remember that?

Four wrongs don't make a right, they make a righty.

Call me Pollyanna. I want to be better than them, and not let them set the low bar for us.

It doesn't mean you sit back and take it, but nailing Jenna as a cow doesn't undo anything that's been said or done to Chelsea, Billy, et al.

Bourgeois, reading this latest feisty verbal out-pouring, replete with your customary profusion of antic straw man arguments and bald inaccuracies not only confirms my opinion that you would be ideally suited to write Mrs. Bush's public statements but that you could easily stand in for Dana Perino.

Well, the Hillary (as First Lady) problem lay insofar as she actually was crafting policy... I think a First Lady can be critiqued on that basis, either by the role she plays overtly (on the health care committee) or covertly (the travel office firings). BTW, that would also be true for Nancy Reagan.

If Laura is that kind of First Lady, it certainly seems to be highly secret. Whether she's a Stepford wife or not, it seems George has given her a very limited role in this administration, mostly by going out and doing noncontroversial things like teaching kids to read or making vacuous patriotic speeches. If she actually is crafting policy about things like the war or FISA, I sure haven't heard about it. And if George Bush decided to blow up the world trade towers, I am certain he did not tell her. Pat Nixon was in the dark about Watergate and many other things.

Asking her what she thinks about her husband causing 9/11 seems pointless --- even if he did, I would highly doubt he would tell her.

As for Chelsea -- well, apparently she falls under the rule of campaigning for her mother; although I absolutely agree that attacks on her, prior to 2008, were unwarranted. As they were on Amy Carter. So yes, you're right. Perhaps we ought to remember to do unto others as we would have them do to us.

Bush mere and Bush kiddos have all been involved in campaigning for B43 -- they are more than just stowaways. If protesters can capture their attention by confronting them publicly with bold accusations concerning Pops, we can be assured of getting the entire brood's attention.

Sorry Seeker
THEY WERE THERE, SO WE SHOULD BE SILENT?

IN A WORD: BALLS.

RECALL CHELSEA?