Davenport gets taste of security absurdity

QC Times photo by Jeff Cook

The picture above is captioned in the QC Times,

Davenport police officers tell protesters marching along River Drive they had orders to collect the wooden sticks on their American flags as a security measure. The marchers demonstrated and raised banners while Vice President Dick Cheney attended a fundraiser in Davenport.

Cheney came to town, and in what is a by now very common occurrence, protesters were subjected to harassment and ludicrous policies and restrictions.

I could link to dozens of stories which make this one seem mild by comparison. Protesters, some elderly, herded into the Orwellian named "Free Speech Zones", basically pens hundreds of yards from where Bush or Cheney are appearing or traveling, protesters hauled off or arrested for simply wearing anti-Bush tee-shirts, and on and on.

Davenport got a taste of it when Dick "The Snarl" Cheney came to Davenport for a fundraiser at the home of Chuck Ruhl in McClellan Heights for candidate Mike Whalen.

Davenport, as well as U.S. taxpayers likely paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the security surrounding this visit alone, yet it was purely partisan, soley to raise money for a Republican candidate. Cheney made no public appearance and didn't give a press conference. As a matter of fact, the press was barred from the event.

Yet we're supposed to pay for this?

As usual, John Beydler puts it all in perspective. Read his post here.

It's truly an outrage and wrong that the Republican party is now behaving as if we live in a one party state, never mind that essentially we do. But the arrogance is familiar, as is passing the expense on to taxpayers with little regard as to it's propriety.

It's a good thing that the press is on to this story and I hope they follow up and report on the expenses involved and how much of the tab is being charged to taxpayers in order to hold a Republican fundraiser.

If Al Gore had pulled this stunt as VP, it would be banner headlines and the hew and cry would be deafening.

And what about the fact that these burly cops were confiscating spindly sticks from these women's flags!?? That's what we're paying for?

And the photographer who got this picture was detained for a time! Yeah, it's national security I guess. But it seems more like Russia or China.

This is security run amok.

Instead of protecting Cheney from little old ladies with small flags, they should worry about him choking on the BS he likely spewed to his very well-heeled admirers in McClellan Heights.