The Bush Administration
demanded to know the race of a South Asian Arizona Star photographer , Mamta Popat, assigned to cover a rally in Tucson, AZ. The paper refused, and the Administration relented, allowing the photographer to cover the event. Clearly however, there is no basis for requesting such information other than security (they think the reporter is a potential terrorist because of her name) or politics (they think the reporter is a Democrat because of her name). Either way, this practice is troubling.
BC04's official excuse?
The photographer's race was needed so that staff could distinguish between her and anyone else who might share that name. They don't even bother trying to be credible anymore.
Also of concern is the the way BC04 is handling its rallies. At recent rallies in Albuquerque and Tucson the campaign required tickets to attend the rally. One could only acquire tickets upon signing a Bush-Cheney endorsement form. Thus only devoted Bush supporters are allowed to attend rallies. Thus no hard questions get asked and an appearance of perfect unanimity is maintained. The idea that one has to support the politicians to have access to the office-holder is absurd, un-American, and may even be illegal.
Even if you make it inside the rally, don't express any `subversive' ideas, or wear the wrong thing, or you could be ejected. One local VIP in Wisconsin was ejected from a BC04 rally by police for wearing a Kerry t-shirt... under his clothes!
In contrast, Kerry rallies are open and tolerant. At a recent Las Cruces Kerry rally:
a group of young men in the crowd took off their flip-flops, waved them over their heads and chanted ``Viva Bush!'' The young men contend that Kerry's support of the war has flip-flopped. Kerry urged the crowd to tolerate the young men and said he and Edwards would teach them a ``lesson in values'' during the campaign.
Those men likely would have been weeded out by a Bush advance team long before the rally, been confined to a `free speech zone' miles away, and hustled off to Guantanamo if they somehow made it through the screen.
Contrast that with another recent Kerry rally hosted by Jim Rassmann, one of Kerry's "Band of Brothers" who spoke the the DNC. In response to low guerilla tactics by Bush supporters, Rassmann invited Bush supporters into the rally and answered their questions at length. Such a thing would never happen at a Bush rally.
It seems to me that this sort of exclusionary behavior on the campaign trail, against the press and voters alike, highlights the Bush Administration's desperation and isolation. It is hard to reach out to independents, undecideds, and potential cross-over Democrats if you won't even have a conversation with them. But that has been among the major flaws of the Bush Administration from the begining; their secrecy, their discomfort with real, as opposed to handpicked, constituents, and their obsession with stage-managing all public functions into empty, lock-step spectaculars, marks them as a fascist regime, not a democratic one. I read the increasingly heavy-handed approach they are using as desperation: a very good sign, indeed.
The author's blog is: BlogForArizona.com