Posted on 09/01/2004 1:55:15 AM PDT by kattracks
Protesters got upclose and personal with Vice President Cheney at Madison Square Garden for the past two nights.Medea Benjamin, 51, of the peace group Code Pink, said she unveiled a banner near Cheney that read "Be Pro Life, Stop the Killing in Iraq" last night.
Benjamin, of San Francisco, said she borrowed "a friend of a friend's" floor pass to gain access to the Garden.
She said the veep forced a smile as she yelled, "Mr. Cheney, how much money did Halliburton make in Iraq?"
Security staff then tackled her to the floor and took her to a basement room for questioning, first by NYPD detectives and then by the Secret Service.
She was released two hours later.
"Aside from being pushed to the ground, they were quite nice," Benjamin said. "It's nice that they distinguish that people who are committed to nonviolence are not a threat."
On Monday, a straight-A Yale University student - the son of a former Clinton administration official - used a GOP volunteer's shirt and a "Bush-Cheney '04" placard to slip by a small army of federal agents scouring the famed arena, officials said.
Yelling anti-war slogans, Thomas Frampton, 21, got within 10 feet of Cheney before being grabbed and wrestled to the ground by a Secret Service agent about 9:15 p.m. Monday.
Officials said Frampton was unarmed and Cheney was never in any danger. But they said Frampton only had credentials issued to volunteers who work outside the Garden and should not have been allowed into the arena.
There was no immediate comment from his father, George, a former assistant interior secretary and currently a partner at the Washington law firm of David Boies, who represented Al Gore during the fight over the 2000 Florida presidential results. Thomas Frampton's grandfather was New York hotel mogul Milton Kimmelman.
The Yalie rabble-rouser was arraigned in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday afternoon on misdemeanor charges of assaulting federal officers and impeding the operation of the Secret Service. He was released on $50,000 bond and ordered to steer clear of the convention.
"This defendant went through quite elaborate steps to gain access to Madison Square Garden," said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hillebrecht.
Originally published on September 1, 2004
About the time somebody's brains hits the carpet, maybe some of these whiners would figure out we are at war. Cop or Secret Service could just say I thought he was a terrorist and didn't want to take the chance with the Vice Prez life. Maybe they will stay outside on the sidewalk then.
Medea, honey, he didn't "force a smile". He was laughing at you.
LOL
Thanks for highlighting that.
For all the yelling and snarling the left has engaged in when falsely claiming the Swift Vets are tied to the Bush campaign, it sure is becoming more plain with each passing day that these protests are part and parcel of the DNC.
Yep. I guess there won't be any web of connections chart for these losers, though.
The Odyssey. Medea was spurned by Jason, after being his lover for a number of years. She sent an enchanted cloak to Jason's new wife, which burned her to death as soon as she tried it on. Then, as a final act of revenge on Jason, Medea burned the sons she had borne him to death in the fireplace.
If you're wondering why anyone would deliberately take the name of a woman who killed her own children (because this Medea was born Susie Benjamin), well, your guess is as good as mine. And probably just as accurate.
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