Celebrating Our Rights by Taking Them Away
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
The White House today released the president’s proclamation in honor of Constitution Day. As all you Constitution Day lovers out there know well, the holiday isn’t until September 17. You may be wondering why the White House celebrated Constitution Day three weeks early. We can’t say for sure. The answer is probably stamped “highly sensitive” and locked in Cheney’s walk-in safe. Maybe it’s hereditary, the first president Bush once celebrated Pearl Harbor Day a month early.
Officially known as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, the holiday marks the date that the Constitution was signed, on September 17, 1787. You can read the history of the holiday here and the actual document here.
Ironically, what’s clearer than ever today is that the Bushies would do well to spend some time with that document. A Washington Post story tells the story of a White House manual that instructs event staff on how to muzzle dissent at presidential events. You can read the manual for yourself here. The document was obtained as part of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of people ejected from Bush’s speeches, including one couple who were arrested and detained in West Virginia in 2004 simply for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts. (You can read about this First Amendment case here.)
The goal of the White House manual is to ensure that the president never has to witness dissent. The document advises event planners and advance teams to “work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route.”
The manual instructs organizers to form roving “rally squads” to drown out or remove nonviolent protesters at presidential events. “If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out the protestors [sic] (USA!,USA!,USA!). As a last resort, security should remove the demonstrators from the event site. The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities….If the group is carrying signs, trying to shout down the President or has the potential to cause some greater disruption to the event, action needs to be taken immediately to minimize the demonstrator’s effect.”
Happy Constitution Day everybody!
