First Lady's Speech Interrupted By Dead Soldier's Mother Woman Blames Bush For Son's Death POSTED: 12:20 pm EDT September 16, 2004 UPDATED: 6:11 pm EDT September 16, 2004 HAMILTON, N.J. -- First lady Laura Bush made a campaign stop in New Jersey Thursday. The visit comes as her husband, President George W. Bush, gains strength against John Kerry in the Garden State. "There is a lot of intrigue with this race in New Jersey. Imagine if we were competing at full throttle, and that's why the first lady came here today," said Sen. Joseph Kyrillos Jr., chairman of New Jersey's Republican party. The firehouse trip was a first visit by Bush/Cheney campaign to New Jersey that wasn't a fund-raising event. The visit didn't go exactly as planned. One woman was arrested and removed from the event. Bush talked about more tax relief for businesses, healthcare reform and defeating terrorism. Many people in the crowd had lost relatives on Sept. 11, 2001. "It's for our country, and our children and our grandchildren that we do the hard work of confronting terror and promoting democracy," Bush said. During Bush's salute to the men and women in Iraq, Sue Sapir Niederer, of Hopewell, N.J., was pulled outside the firehouse after she staged a war protest. Sapir Niederer's son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed in Iraq. He died in February while trying to disarm a bomb. Niederer was wearing a T-shirt with the words "President Bush You Killed My Son" (pictured, left). As shouts of "Four More Years" subsided, Sapir Niederer, standing in the middle of the crowd of about 700, continued to shout about the killing of her son. Secret Service and local police escorted her out of the event, handcuffed her and placed her in the back of a police van. "Excuse me, what are you charging me with," Sapir Niederer repeated to officers as they arrested her. Sapir Niederer was charged with defiant trespassing, even though she had a ticket to the rally. As the first lady continued speaking, several people shouted back at Sapir Niederer. One woman yelled, "Your son chose to fight in that war." Hamilton, a sprawling bedroom community of 90,000 near Trenton that is home to a large number of state employees, has traditionally been a swing community in local, state and national elections. http://www.nbc10.com/politics/3735989/detail.html
I saw that on tv too, it's probably a good idea for the Bush team to silence these people, since they can hurt his campaign. After all, some of us here would think they were influence by the "evil" liberal media, right? However, I won't stoop so low as to blame conservatives for berating a woman for being upset about losing her son.
This is becoming serial behavior for this campaign. It would be bad if it happened once. But it's happened time and time again all by only ONE SIDE of the campgain.
The problem with this is Bush didn't send her son to die. Her son volunteered for the army and died following orders. He volunteered to be part of the bomb diffusion squad, so he knew what that would entail and what risks would come with it. Plus, why is it that interrupting speeches has become an OK form of protest? It would have been a more acceptable form of protest if she stood outside the speech and told her story. That's totally fine. But if this were about a Bush supporter interrupting a Kerry speech, it'd be looked at differently, as an ill-conceived act (which it would be).
If he felt that way, he should have refused to go and face the consequences as Muhammad Ali did. He didn't. It's a tradgedy but humans have free will, and he could have decided not to go if he was so against the war.
Shouldn't a soldier trust that his country would only put him in harm's way only if it was absolutely, positively necessary? That trust was betrayed. And, yes, it is a tragedy.
His country was acting on information that was confirmed by Russia, Brittain, CIA, and NUMEROUS other countries. The country didn't betray his trust.
I haven't heard of any, but if you have I would be interested to know what happened. Do you have any links?
I believe there were whole threads about how folks heckeled Kerry and Edwards while they were speaking. Kerry and Edwards, and even THK bantered back with the hecklers. Protesters regularly show up with flip flops and begin chanting and heckling at Kerry speeches. Meanwhile we have the person arrested at a Bush speech for wearing a t-shirt that said 'LOVE AMERICA - HATE BUSH'. Cheney wouldn't let people in to his event unless they signed a pledge to vote for him. Cheney's group also called and demanded to know the race of a photographer coming to cover an event for the press. Bush wants to back out of the debate with the townhall format. Why is this administration not willing to listen to dissent? No wonder the woman had to interrupt Laura's speech. Nobody else would even listen to her. Bush doesn't read the papers, and only supporters are allowed at his events. There isn't a way to get the message across.
Sounds plausible and I certainly don't condone this. But my stance is that these guys should have been arrested, not that this makes it OK for people to interrupt speeches. Trust me, they hear the dissent. It's just a difference of some people thinking that listening to dissent means doing what the dissenters want. It's not possible to not know about a large protest taking place outside your National Convention. But just because someone protests doesn't mean that Bush has to do what the person wants you know? By the way do you have any links to media coverage of these events, because I'm sure there would be. Not saying you're lying, just want to read what happened.
halfbreed: If you want those links, do an internet search. You support Bush. That's fine. But it's an indisputed fact that Bush and Cheney are only speaking in front of supporters. Ever. Most of the time those supporters are required to sign a loyalty oath in order to hear the speeches. If someone doesn't support Bush/Cheney and shows up at their events and lets it be known they're there to oppose them they are arrested. This has never, ever happened before in our modern American politics. Meanwhile, Kerry and Edwards speak in front of anyone. They allow dissent and protest at their speeches. People clap their flip flops like home team crowds waving wands to distract visiting free throw shooters. And guess what? They don't get arrested. At Kerry events, people can wear whatever kinds of t-shirts they want and, check it out, they don't get arrested. They don't even get asked to leave. I figure Kerry just sort of understands he's campaigning for president of the United States, where such things are allowed. Bush has a different idea. This isn't a matter of opinion or spin -- it's the plain truth, backed up again and again, and absolutely no one who's paid attention denies it. In fact, Doonesbury has spent the last week mocking the loyalty oaths and the fact that in Bush's 'town hall' stuff, each of the questions is vetted and approved before they're asked. Further, before the war began Bush had a quote to the effect of saying that he wasn't bothered by protests against the war since he didn't pay attention to them. Add to that the fact that he's also on record saying he doesn't read the news and I don't have the first idea how you can say "trust me, they're aware." They have done everything possilbe to innoculate themselves from any criticism whatsoever. That doesn't mean you shouldn't support them if you agree with their platform, but please don't pretend they pay any attention at all to dissent or protest and please don't pretend that Kerry and Bush are even on this front. It isn't even close. No major presidential candidate in the history of our country has done more to ignore dissenting views than Bush and it's either patently disengenuous or patently ignorant to suggest otherwise.
http://www.yahoo.com/_ylh=X3oDMTB1c2ZmZzF2BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEdGVzdAMwBHRtcGwDbnMtYmV0YQ--/s/135781/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm..._on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_weapons&cid=542&ncid=716
