Columnist's comments on Bush met with cheers, jeers (Reeves predicts Bush assassination)

Sarasota Herald Tribune ^ | 3/20/03 | Robert Eckhart

[FastNBulbous]

Columnist's comments on Bush met with cheers, jeers

Richard Reeves predicts President Bush will be assassinated over the war.

By ROBERT ECKHART robert.eckhart@heraldtribune.com

SARASOTA -- The jeers started at about the time syndicated columnist Richard Reeves predicted that President Bush will be assassinated over the war with Iraq.

Reeves, addressing a crowd of 1,700 at Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on Wednesday, also called Secretary of State Colin Powell "incompetent" and -- this one got the most boos -- said that starting a war with Iraq will be the beginning of the end of the American Empire.

A few hundred people clapped. Several hundred booed, and about 50 walked out, making it the the most controversial Town Hall Today lecture in a decade.

"I wasn't surprised," said Susan Barcomb, chairwoman of the volunteer group that organizes the annual lecture series as a fund-raiser for the Ringling School Library Association. "He's very liberal and very outspoken."

The last person who got booed was Robert Kennedy Jr., early in the Clinton administration.

The audience at the Town Hall lectures is largely retired, well-to-do, well-educated and tough.

But the catcalls are usually saved for people who get out of their seats early to get a good seat for lunch.

Reeves, who has written critically-acclaimed books about Presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, had talked for an hour about the two presidents without any trouble.

Iraq came up during the question-and-answer portion of his presentation. He didn't say anything out of line with what he has written lately. On Saturday, for example, he wrote, "It is hard not to conclude that the president is ignorant, the secretary of defense nuts and the secretary of state incompetent."

And he had plenty of supporters at Wednesday's lectures. But some of them thought it best to keep quiet, unlike the 200 or 300 people who booed him.

An 80-year-old woman who agreed with Reeves called the Herald-Tribune to talk about it, but wouldn't give her name. She didn't want her neighbors to know she doesn't agree with them about the war.

"I just felt very strongly that he said many of the things that should be said, and there were a lot of people who just didn't want to hear it," she said. "Many of the things he said were a little bit much, and I think some people were offended because of what's going on now in the world."

Reeves left Sarasota in the afternoon and did not respond to e-mails requesting an interview.

But he wasn't fazed at all by the booing as he sat with Barcomb and ate lunch at Van Wezel -- grilled fish with salsa, rice and lemon meringue pie.

"He had so many people come up to him who were praising him and asking questions," Barcomb said. "I had to drag him out of the lunchroom. They wouldn't let him go."

[FITZ]

Predicts or Suggests????? I think this guy is walking a fine line ---kind of threatening.

[JohnnyZ]

it's turtles all the way down

Actually no -- Denny Hastert

[Fifth Business]

Oh sure, make me do my own research! LOL. From Somewhere on the Internet:

>Stephen Hawking in BriefHistoryOfTime starts with the same anecdote.
>A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a
>public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the
>sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection
>of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at
>the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish.
>The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant
>tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is
>the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever,"
>said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

[rface]

“Bush is Hitler” indoctrination: Threats to the President

[Dialup Llama]

>The last person who got booed was Robert Kennedy Jr., early in the Clinton administration.

Did JFK Jr. also call for the assasination of the president?

[b4its2late]

Should the Secret Service know about this? If anyone said something like that about slick, they'd be in the slammer in a heart beat.

[Leatherneck_MT]

Maybe it's time for another Civil War to clean house.

"The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood if Tyrants and Patriots"

Semper Fi

[Ippolita]

The original is the title of a book by J. Delozier & J.Grinder printed in 1987 Lib. of Congr. Card N° 87-080282

[FastNBulbous]

One and the same. Notice that in his column about the Sarasota talk he doesn't mention the assassination prediction.

[JoJo Gunn]

Never turn your back on Leftists.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Ringling School Library Association

Send in the clowns!

[Landru]

"An 80-year-old woman who agreed with Reeves called the Herald-Tribune to talk about it, but wouldn't give her name."

Notice how they're playing the sympathy angle by citing an 80 year old woman?
Of course I immediately noticed there wasn't so much as *one* anonymous conservative quote added -- if only for *balance* -- in this cheap, flimsy smear job.
~Yea...subtle *but* cute, isn't it?

It gets better...

"She didn't want her neighbors to know she doesn't agree with them about the war."

Ohmygawddd!!
It's the dreaded *fear* factor; &, of course *everyone* realizes -- if *just* subliminally -- that a poor, helpless 80 year old woman living in America should never be made to feel like that!
I mean, it's - it's - McCarthyism rearing its ugly head!!!
Well, the mediots warned us of this & sure enough, here it is in black & white. Geshhhhh.

The buttressing of Liberal-Socialist gobbledegook continues...

"'I just felt very strongly that he said many of the things that should be said...'"

While *not* strong enough to discuss this with your neighbors???
Awwww c'mon, yer joshin', aren'tcha!! :o)

These quotes are outright LIES & this old bag's the fabrication of a deranged urinalist; &, one who's *skills* boarder frightfully on the banal.

As for the rag where this "news" item appears?
Now this rag beautifully illustrates the pathetic state of affairs in our nation's Lamestream media about as well as any.
It's an excellent example of the kind of "reporting" being done by the Liberal-Socialists who're -- literally -- *infesting* every facet of our media today, everywhere.

...& these maniacs are in charge of what we're feeding our minds, huh.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Unless you're driving a bulldozer.

[ohioWfan]

It ain't gonna happen, lawgirl........

Our President is being protected by his Heavenly Father, and no liberal's wishful thinking can change that fact.

[lasereye]

he obviously has his reasons for thinking assasination...

Maybe he's trying to put the idea in somebody's head.

[Steel Eye]

"Notice that in his column about the Sarasota talk he doesn't mention the assassination prediction."

I noticed that. He seems to think of himself as a victim.

"Go back to Russia, you bum!" is right.

[Hegemony Cricket]

man, if you're close enough to smell it - you're way too close!

[Chummy]

Richard "Red" Reeves covers himself (www.richardreeves.com). Placing himself in his best possible self-lit light, doesn't it sound as if "Red" already had a call from the Secret Service on his sick comment?

Does Free Speech Endanger Our Troops?
BY RICHARD REEVES | Universal Press Syndicate

SARASOTA, FLORIDA --- "Go back to Russia, you bum!" said someone on the right, in about the tenth row of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall when I spoke there last Wednesday. Wow! -- I haven’t heard that one in a long time.

I was just finishing up the question-and-answer session after a speech on presidential leadership to Town Hall Today 2003, raising funds for the Ringling School Library Association here. Great questions, great audience. The lecture was principally about John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, but a couple of the last questions zeroed in on the war in Iraq. When I said there was a possibility that President Bush might be overreaching and that history could one day judge that this was the "beginning of the end of American empire," a few people in the crowd of 1,750 people began to boo.

I think some people walked out, too, or maybe they just wanted to avoid traffic in the parking lot. I could not really see that well with spotlights in my eyes. I was perfectly prepared to ignore Bush if I could, but the questions were direct and so were my answers. I said I thought the president was ignorant of history, the Secretary of Defense was nuts and the Secretary of State had blown it diplomatically. Most people were too polite to shout at me, possibly most agreed with me.

Most of the audience applauded, drowning out the booing, but I still heard the guy who said I was in the wrong country. Later dozens of people, supporters of the Ringling School of Art and Design here, apologized to me for the "rudeness" of others. I did not take it as rudeness. I said what I thought and they didn’t like it, so they let me have it.

I thought it might be worse. Two nights before, in Washington, at the annual dinner of American-Irish Fund, the crowd, also in the 2,000 range, seemed to divide evenly for and against the president’s words when he gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of town. Half that crowd, including dozens of members of Congress, applauded the president, the other half just stared at a huge television screen mounted in the great hall of the National Building Museum....

RICHARD REEVES is the author of 12 books, including President Nixon: Alone in the White House. He has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, Esquire and dozens of other publications. E-mail him at rr@richardreeves.com.

Drop him a note!

[SandRat]

Just turned the columnist into the authorities. He-he-he! :)

[Hildy]

Since it's OK for him to say it, I'm going to say right her right now what I"ve been think for the last 10 years. I hope Clinton is assassinated. There, I said it.