I am a long time conservative Republican who voted for Bush.
Welcome to FreeRepublic. I'm Pope Julius II.
Posted on 04/29/2003 6:55:36 AM PDT by hardnose GOP
The whole strange thing began nearly two years ago, when an acquaintance e-mailed me, wondering why the Secret Service had contacted him to ask if he thought I was a threat to George W. Bush. Me? A pretzel is more of a threat to Bush than I am. At the time, I was writing an unauthorized biography of Microsoft's C.E.O., Steve Ballmer. I fully expected the Beast from Redmond to keep tabs on me -- which, of course, it did and which, of course, Ballmer publicly denied -- but the Secret Service?
Private investigators have been known to intimate that they're with the government, so I called the Secret Service's Seattle office to report that someone might be impersonating one of their agents. No, the officer responded, they had wanted to contact me for the past eight months but couldn't find me. Weird -- my name and number were in the Seattle phone book. I went to their office to find out what was going on.
After a couple of pat-down searches, I sat in a small room with the good cop, Steve, and the bad cop, whom I'll call Cruella. Steve said they had received a report that, on Oct. 12, 2000, I was overheard in a D.C. bar saying, ''I have friends in the C.I.A. who will make sure Bush doesn't enter the White House.'' I responded that except for the facts that I don't have any friends in the C.I.A. (that I know of) and that I've never thought, let alone said, something like that, I was in Philadelphia that day. Unfazed, Cruella opened an inch-thick file. Everything I've ever done wrong in my life flashed before me. (Took about a nanosecond.) She then said, firmly, ''You've been arrested for trespassing on federal property in Washington.''
The jig was up. Brilliant police work. As was widely reported, in 1986 this son of a librarian was convicted of a petty misdemeanor, having been caught red-handed studying after hours in the Library of Congress. Seriously. I helped lead a successful civil disobedience action protesting evening-hours reductions by not leaving when the new hours went into effect.
''We want your medical records,'' she continued, sliding a paper across the table, ''and want you to sign this release.'' She paused. ''You were in the military, you use the V.A. We can get those records.'' They can? So why do they need a release?
''I'd like to talk with my attorney first,'' I said. ''May we continue this tomorrow?''
Cruella said, ''Yes, but you'd better come back,'' ominously adding, ''I don't want to have to come looking for you.'' I expected her to continue, ''And your little dog, too.''
My attorney relayed the sobering news that, in a rare First Amendment exception, the simple utterance of a threat against a major presidential candidate can get you five years in prison and a fine -- and what I reportedly said qualified.
Sitting in the interrogation room the next afternoon, I gave the agents a copy of my Philadelphia hotel bill from the day in question and again refused to sign the release. (Cruella had been replaced by another, nicer agent.) I told them that I realized that this was a serious charge and said I'd answer any questions they had.
''When was the last time you were in the White House?''
''In the early 90's, for a press conference in the East Room,'' I said. ''Hillary looks far better in person.'' They later confirmed my visit.
''What do you think of George W. Bush?''
''He's grammatically challenged, verbicidal,'' I said. ''I made plans to attend the Gore inaugural.''
I came to believe that it was an investigation in search of a crime. Eventually, they ran out of questions. I left. Steve and Cruella might have been inept, but still, I started looking over my shoulder.
Later, I submitted four Freedom of Information Act requests. The Secret Service ignored them all until my attorney filed suit in federal court. That got their attention, and my Secret Service file recently appeared in the mail. Along with the 85 pages they sent, there was a cover sheet noting, ''In addition . . . 97 pages were withheld in their entirety.'' Much of what I got was blanked out. They spelled my name five different ways, gave my weight variously as 173, 220 and the correct 190 and listed three different birthdays; my height was either 5-foot-9 or my actual 5-foot-11. The report also revealed: ''There is no indication that he has ever behaved violently toward anyone. . . . Most importantly, the subject has no interest in Potus. . . . The subject is focused on and consumed by his book. . . . Case closed.''
Recently, as I sat in a tavern, talking with a few strangers, the subject of George Bush came up. ''He's an idiot going to war for oil,'' said one. ''He's doing his daddy's dirty work,'' said another. ''He looks like Alfred E. Newman,'' said a third. But I didn't say a word.
I am a long time conservative Republican who voted for Bush.
Welcome to FreeRepublic. I'm Pope Julius II.
You know, this claim may fool the occasional C-Span listener, but it will only get you a well-deserved ZOT! here...
Yeah, where were you when Hillary swiped thousands of FBI files and Slick sicked the IRS on conservative opponents?
I thought so...
I didn't support that either. But Bush and Ashcroft are mush worse. I just hope I am not dragged off to a gulag for saying these things.
Well, two years ago, GWB had only been President for 90 days or so. That Secret Service group had been under Clinton control for the past 8 years, and we all know that the transition didn't go quickly for GWB.
Familiar crutch of the left wing, give whatever you disapprove of a Nazi label or a KKK tag.
By the way, Gestapo tactics would have been if they had taken the author out to some park like Fort Marcy and put bullet in his ear and made it look like a suicide.
LOL! Good try, O Gore toady!
Bullcrap. Slick operated entirely outside the law. What Ashcroft is doing has been upheld time and time again by the courts. The actual danger of what Ashcroft has proposed is how these laws could be abused if someone like Clinton ever got into the White House again.
I just hope I am not dragged off to a gulag for saying these things.
Yeah, just like how they threw the Dixie Chicks, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon in prison. Oops, they didn't! Your sense of persecution is as misplaces as your sense of self-importance...
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