Criticism of the Bush administration is assault

I kid you not.

Steve Howards says he used to fantasize about what he’d say to President Bush or Vice President Cheney if he ever got the chance.

That opportunity arrived on June 16, the same day he says he read about U.S. fatalities in Iraq reaching 2,500.

If only we could all be so lucky.

Howards says he was taking two of his kids to their Suzuki piano camp in Beaver Creek, Colorado. They were walking across the outdoor public mall area when all of a sudden he saw Cheney there.

"I didn't even know he was in town," Howards says. "He was walking through the area shaking hands. Initially, I walked past him. Then I said to myself, 'I can't in good conscience let this opportunity pass by.' So I approached him, I got about two feet away, and I said in a very calm tone of voice, 'Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible.' And then I walked away."

Short, sweet, and to the point.

But that's when things turned sour.

"About ten minutes later, I came back through the mall with my eight-year-old son in tow," Howards recalls, "and this Secret Service man came out of the shadows, and his exact words were, 'Did you assault the Vice President?' "

But wait! It gets worse.

Here's how Howards says he responded: "No, but I did tell Mr. Cheney the way I felt about the war in Iraq, and if Mr. Cheney wants to be shielded from public criticism, he should avoid public places. If exercising my constitutional rights to free speech is against the law, then you should arrest me."

Which is just what the agent, Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr, proceeded to do.

Again: I kid you not!

So my take on this is, we live in a country where the SS will likely arrest you if you criticize the Bush administration. We live in a country whose head honchos are undermining the very foundations upon which the country was founded. But of course, the story speaks for itself; one can come to this conclusion on their own if they actually think.

I should note that this happened in a mall, where there surely had to be dozens of people who could bear witness to this. If Howards had truly assaulted the Vice President of the United States of America, the Secret Service would've pounced on him immediately, and there would be news of the incident everywhere you looked.

But again, this speaks for itself to the people who actually think.

— Athelwulf