Tales from Stasiland: The Bubbleboy President

By Scott Horton

Back during the 2004 election campaign there were more than a dozen reported incidents in which citizens were ejected from rallies or events because they were suspected of harboring views hostile to the president. This included people who had tickets or passes to attend the event, but were seen wearing buttons, T-shirts or other political paraphernalia or were seen arriving at the event in a car with a bumpersticker which Bush campaign functionaries considered disloyal. The facts in these incidents were remarkably similar, usually involving persons who held themselves out to be Secret Service agents or police who took the undesirables into custody or showed them out. In a couple of cases, legal actions were commenced.

In one of these incidents, in Denver, the ejected persons sued, claiming their first amendment rights had been abridged by the action. And now the president’s enforcers respond. The New York Times reports:

“The president's right to control his own message includes the right to exclude people expressing discordant viewpoints from the audience,” says the brief.

A lawyer for Casper, Sean Gallagher, said, “They excluded people from a White House event because they posed a threat of being disruptive.”

The era of the Thought Police is here. Persons who are suspected of thinking hostile thoughts may be ejected from public events. And having an anti-war bumpersticker on your car is sufficient evidence of thinking hostile thoughts.