Presidental Access and the Political Process

If the messagesmiths and imageers can drive White House volunteers/event staff to toss people out of Bush events because of a bumper sticker, it’s time for us citizens to reclaim the political process.

President Bush was in town on March 24 for a town-hall-style meeting regarding Social Security.  After getting through event security, a “staff person for the event sponsor,” who appeared to be a Secret Service agent, approached Leslie Weise, Karen Bauer, and Alex Young and had them tossed out of the event.  Their crime?  Having a “No More Blood for Oil” bumper sticker on the back of the car they came to the event in.  (Reported in The Denver Post on March 30, 2005:  Bush-event ouster spurs probe”)

Now, you can argue that a private sponsor has a right to control who is or is not allowed on their property.  In fact, this very argument was used during the election to restrict anti-Bush citizens from attending Bush campaign appearances and anti-Kerry citizens from Kerry campaign rallies.  To some extent, I even agree that this tactic is valid, for campaign events at least, if quite misguided.  But now Bush is out plugging the idea that we need to fix Social Security RIGHT DAMN NOW or it’ll be the END OF THE WORLD for seniors… in 25 to 40 years.  These town-hall-style meetings are paid for with taxpayer money, and as such, any taxpayer who can pass the security procedures should be permitted to attend.  Even if (especially if) the event is on private property.

I realize that there will always be a limited number of tickets available to presidential events.  I also realize that the messagesmiths and imageers responsible for making the President look presidential want to restrict the audience to people who agree with the President.  Hell, this is the reason we can’t call the meetings “town hall” meetings, but “town-hall-style” meetings – town hall meetings actually have honest discussion between people of differing opinions, not marionettes parroting the party line.

Keeping people out of political events because of their political opinions is bad for the Republic.  It keeps our leaders insulated from all dissent and trends them toward “groupthink,” and it creates an electorate that is so apathetic and cynical about the political process that most citizens won’t even bother to educate themselves on what our leaders are doing.  Now, the cynic in me wonders if this might be intentional, but I also know that I’d be damn impressed by any politician with the audacity to invite his opposition’s supporters into an honest debate about his positions.  Talk about using the public’s cynicism to your advantage….  But I digress.

Our political process is so controlled by imageers and messagesmiths that is being suffocated.  Keeping politicians “on-message” has put a bag over the heads of discussion, debate, the honest exchange of ideas, and the art of political compromise.  And now we’re reaching the level of possible illegal activities by White House volunteers/staff.  The only question now (and it’s a biggy) is how we reclaim our political process from the imageers and messagesmiths.