AP reporter Jennifer Loven reports that Bush visited the family home at Kennebunkport. and was greated by about 700 protesters:
What local police estimated were about 700 anti-war demonstrators marched Saturday to within half a mile of the Bush compound before being turned back at a security checkpoint. Called Walker’s Point after the family of former President Bush’s mother, the stone-and-shingle retreat covering a craggy promontory is owned by the current president’s parents.
The protesters sang, chanted, beat drums, waved signs and even played fiddles to call on Bush to bring troops home.
“Bush is fiddling while the world burns, just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” said Pippa Stanley, 15, of Richmond, Maine, who was helping with the backdrop for pair of fiddlers dressed in togas.
The group was loosely aligned with activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier who died in Iraq who gained international attention when she shadowed Bush last summer while he vacationed at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found that only about one-third of Americans support Bush’s handling of Iraq.
Seeing a protest against George Bush was interesting but I didn’t plan on a blog post until I noted the author. I had a previous post on Jennifer Loven in March (reprinted under the fold) commending her for exposing the dishonest rhetoric common in Bush’s speeches.
Loven came under attack by the right wing in response to this article. She also has a previous history of exposing George Bush, including this report which reviewed hundreds of pages of documents released by the White House on Bush’s National Guard record noting “the records provided no evidence Bush served in Alabama.”
The Press Has Awoken
Posted by Ron Chusid
March 18th, 2006 @ 2:41 pm
We’ve gone through it for years, including the entire 2004 election campaign, but the media remained silent. Finally they are back. Look at this headline from AP: Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches.
Jennifer Loven has finally said what we thought every time we’ve heard Bush speak, but nobody has said. She’s like the kid who had the guts to say, “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” She describes exactly what the Republicans do. After quoting a typical Bush attack, she explains:
Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.
When the president starts a sentence with “some say” or offers up what “some in Washington” believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.
The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.
He typically then says he “strongly disagrees” — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.
Am I allowed to make a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism?
Nice to see at least one journalist – there are others, but not many – proving that the emperor has no clothes.