[Media-watch] Bush's framed appearances and boosters - The Progressive - 22/05/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.progressive.org/mcwatch03/mcwatch03.html

May 19, 2004



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Denied Entrance to Bush Event in Dubuque


On May 7, George W. Bush came to Dubuque to speak at the convention center.


It was billed as a public event, but it was anything but.


Only self-proclaimed Bush supporters could get in. Republican organizers
excluded even a World War II vet and the former commander of the local
American Legion chapter.


This story of exclusion, broken by the Dubuque Telegraph Herald, is in
keeping with other acts of suppression along the Bush campaign trail.


Bill Ward, a member of the 45th Infantry Division during World War II, went
to get tickets a few days ahead of time.


Here is his account: "When I got up there, they asked to see my license and
so forth, and I showed it to them. And then this young guy asked, 'Are you a
Bush backer?'


"And I said, 'No, I didn't vote for him the first time, and I'm not going to
vote for him this time.'


"And he said, 'Get out.'


"I said, 'I don't have to take this crap. I'm a World War II vet.'
"He said, 'Escort him out.'


"I said, 'I don't need an escort. I can find my way out.'


Ward proceeded right down to the offices of the Telegraph Herald. "I was
teed off," he says.


Nick Lucy is a Vietnam veteran and the past commander of the American Legion
in Dubuque. "I blow taps two or three times a week for veterans," he says.


But his service and his patriotism were not enough to get him into the Bush
event, either.


"One of my Republican friends, a prominent businessman, gave me two
tickets," he recalls. "I promised to go because I've seen almost every
President since Johnson."


But once he got to the checkpoint, the security staff said, "You're name is
not on the list," he says.


Lucy explained who had given him the tickets, and he suggested that the
security staff call up his Republican friend then and there.


"I don't care who you want me to call," one of the security people said,
according to Lucy.


When Lucy tried to take the man's picture, "he put his notebook in front of
his face," Lucy says. And then the man told the police to get him out of
there, Lucy recalls.


"If we can't listen to one another, that's not going to make America
better," he says.


Four members of Women in Black were also denied entrance, even though they
had proper tickets. Jan Oswald was one of them.


"I went the morning they were giving out tickets," she says. "It was a
two-and-a-half-hour wait in the Dubuque Building, which is downtown."


The screening process was obvious, she recalls.


"Everyone was being asked whether they supported the President, or were they
registered Republicans, or would they put up a sign in their yard or a
sticker in their car," she says. But for some reason, when she got to the
front of the line, the woman handing out tickets let her buy four of them
without any questions asked, except for the names and phone numbers of all
four women, Oswald says.


On May 7, since she had a ticket, she expected to get into the event. "We
walked up to the check people, and we had our drivers' licenses out and the
tickets, so they looked up our names and they said we were on the list to
get in. But then a gentleman said, 'You do not look like the kind of people
who are here for the right reasons,' " she recalls.


"I responded, 'You know, I'm an American. I've got a ticket that matches. I
have identification, and I want to see the President.'


"The man said, 'This is a private affair. You are not welcome.' At that
point, he ripped up our tickets."


Her response to that?


"We told him it didn't seem like the kind of America we wanted to live in,
and we walked away," she says.


Matt Trewartha is a student of political science at Northeast Iowa Community
College. He stood in line for an hour and a half on May 3 to get a ticket
for himself and three friends.


While there, he acknowledged to another person in line that he was not a
Republican or a Bush supporter but nor was he a Kerry supporter. When he got
to the front, he was told he would not be able to get a ticket because of
the comment he made about not supporting Bush, he says.


"I'm a nineteen-year-old political science major, and I thought it would be
a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the President in my hometown," he
says he told the ticket people.


But to no avail.


Trewartha then asked what he was supposed to do about the three tickets he
was trying to buy for his friends.


"Well, as long as they're Bush supporters they can come on down and get
their own tickets," the man told him, according to Trewartha.


Trewartha's professor of American history, Ralph Scharnau, upon hearing of
his troubles, decided to give him one of his own tickets.


"The day before the event, I went back to the same office and explained the
situation and asked whether I could transfer the names on the tickets,"
Trewartha says. "And they said it was absolutely no problem. But then
someone came out and said, 'Sir, you look familiar. You were here Monday.
And you couldn't get a ticket then, and you can't get one now.' I said, 'Can
I at least have my ticket back so I can give it back to my professor?' And
she said no."


Trewartha seethed afterwards. "I was extremely angry and quite frustrated by
the whole thing," he says.


Arthur Roche is the coordinator of Dubuque Peace and Justice. He also waited
in line for two hours to get his ticket. Unlike Trewartha, he got a ticket.


But he did not gain entry into the event.


"As I was approaching the gate, a guy said, 'You need to have your ID and
your ticket out,' so I did that, and the woman asked to see them, so I gave
them both to her," Roche explains. "She raised her eyebrows when she saw my
name, and she said, 'Just a moment please,' and walked about twenty feet
away to confer with three men. She and one or two of those guys came back
over to me and said, 'Sir, you're not invited. You'll have to leave.' She
handed me my driver's license and my ticket back, and then one of the guys
grabbed the ticket out of my hand, tore it in half, and threw it in the
garbage."


Roche says he tried to retrieve it, but the man said, "You can't have that.
That's our property. You'll need to leave now."


Roche recalls saying, "This stinks," and he walked away.


Steve Bateman, chair of the Dubuque County Republican Party, says this
screening policy was not his idea. "I wasn't in charge of President Bush
coming to Dubuque," he says. "The Bush campaign ran the event."


The Bush campaign did not return phone calls for comment.

--Matthew Rothschild