Via the AP”: Activist Cindy Sheehan Arrested at Capitol
Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.
Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived.
I suppose there is some political capital to be generated from being arrested, especially in the House chamber right before the SOTU. Still, wouldn’t it have been a far better bang for the buck, so to speak, to stay in the room, get on tv (global tv, mind you) and then be interviewed by the networks after the speech? You know that if she had been in the chamber that she would have been on camera probably several times.
However, she blew her chance. Indeed, if I wasn’t trolling the net for news, I wouldn’t have even known she was there, and I watched part of the MSNBC, Fox News and ABC coverage of the event tonight. She will get coverage for being arrested, but nothing like what she would have gotten had she stayed.
And what is it with peace activists who think that a slogan on a t-shirt has any kind of efficacy vis-a-vis policy? I can see a teenager who thinks that showing up at “The Man’s” place to show him what for with a placard or shirt would be speaking truth to power and all that, but I continue to be amazed at Ms. Sheehan’s puerile, and indeed often juvenile, attempts at scoring political points. Most of what she does looks like either a bad redux of the 60s or simply isn’t smart PR (like going to see Chavez).
None of this is going to effect public policy, even if it will make her cohorts quite happy. But again, thinking that one’s peer group is all that one needs to impress is very adolescent, now isn’t it?
I have been reluctant to comment much on Sheehan, but she has clearly passed into theater of the absurd territory and so it is hard to resist. However, as noted above, what draws me to comment about this story more than anything is the fact that there were smarter ways to have played her cards tonight. She squandered a remarkable amount of free PR–and for what? The chance to be arrested again? Surely once would be enough to know what the experience is like.
Ah well.
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February 1st, 2006 at 10:10 am
If anything is puerile about this whole thing, its the fact that she was arrested SIMPLY FOR WEARING A T-SHIRT. The T-shirt apparently had the number of US troops killed in Iraq and a question: “How Many More?”
She had a ticket given to her by a member of Congress and was not disrupting any proceedings. If anything, it demonstrates the vacuity of Bush’s consistent rhetorical invocations of “freedom” while basic civil liberties are threatened by his big-government policies and proclivities.
February 1st, 2006 at 10:57 am
well, she did get people talking. not a bad thing from a protester’s point of view.
February 1st, 2006 at 11:16 am
Joe,
On the one hand, I take the point. On the other, there are rules of decorum at these events and she knew she was violating the rules by having the shirt covered.
Eric,
My point is that she could have gotten quite a few more people talking had she stayed in the chamber.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:48 pm
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