Man Sentenced for 'Burning Bush' Comment

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- A man who made a remark about a "burning Bush" during the president's March 2001 trip to Sioux Falls was sentenced Friday to 37 months in prison.

Richard Humphreys, of Portland, Ore., was convicted in September of threatening to kill or harm the president and said he plans to appeal.

Humphreys said he got into a barroom discussion in nearby Watertown with a truck driver. A bartender who overheard the conversation realized the president was to visit Sioux Falls the next day and told police Humphreys talked about a "burning Bush" and the possibility of someone pouring a flammable liquid on Bush and lighting it.

"I said God might speak to the world through a burning Bush," Humphreys testified during his trial. "I had said that before and I thought it was funny."

I apologize if this has been already been posted. I did a text search on a variety of Bush, burning, thread, and etc.

Interesting edge case. I don't personally believe that this is a threat on the president's life. I do not feel that this remark, though in bad taste, construed any sort of action towards the act in question. In my opinion, this sick joke is just that. This man was not in an airport, other government property or otherwise secure facility.

In my opinion, if this man had demonstrated some sort of action in the direction of his sick joke, such as showing someone cans of gasoline in the trunk of his car or several boxes of lighter fluid, then it is my belief that this would constitute an actual threat.

I have no problem with the bartender, who knowing that the president was coming into town the next day, called the Secret Service. The bartender could not have known the man's intent, but upon further investigation this case should have been thrown out.

We still have some reaonable expectation to free speech, even including questionable remarks made about public figures. Our public figures are not immune to jokes, even off-color or distasteful ones. That the courts could not separate a sick joke from a credible threat is more of a concern to me than the actual remark made by this idiot. This is a free country and you have the right to say idiotic things, even directed towards public figures.

If wishing harm on public figures is a crime, then I should be in jail for the rest of my life for making numerous jokes surrounding Chelsea stepping on a crack and breaking her mother, then First Lady Clinton's back. This is far from the worst thing I have said, in public, in a bar, about Slick.

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