Liberating the "expressive T-shirts" and supporting the troops

The authoritarian Republicans gave a good illustration last Tuesday evening of the kind of just plain dumb nonsense that can happen when they become insistent on everyone conforming to not just the pre-set Party line, but to its exact packaging.

The St. Petersburg Times has recently run two thoughtful pieces on the ejections of Cindy Sheehan and Beverly Young from the State of the Union address: A troubling pattern on free speech: The Capitol Police have introduced a new phrase into our lexicon: "expressive T-shirts" by Bill Adair 02/03/06. (See also: T-shirt earns exit from House gallery: Beverly Young, the outspoken wife of U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young, says officers objected to her "Support the Troops" shirt by Bill Adair 02/01/06.)

If the shirt fits, wear it, and exercise your free speech by Sue Carlton 02/03/06

Adair points out that the injustice to Sheehan alone would probably not have been enough to squeeze an apology from the Capital [Thought] Police:

If only Sheehan had been arrested, it's doubtful the police would have apologized. Sheehan's tactics have gotten so extreme (she threatened to run against Sen. Dianne Feinstein if the California senator didn't support a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito) that even people who sympathize with her have been turned off.

But Beverly was removed for a pro-Bush message, and Republicans quickly cried foul. The cops apologized and introduced the phrase "expressive T-shirts" into our lexicon.

Now, the Capitol Police have set a precedent. The next time someone shows up at a Bush speech wearing an anti-Bush shirt, it'll be harder to throw them out.

Carlton makes the same point in a somewhat less reverent way in her column, which connects the Tuesday expulsions to longer-established Bush partisans' habits:

What happened to Sheehan would probably not have been big news, except for what happened next. Partway into President Bush's speech, Rep. C.W. Bill Young's wife, Beverly, was asked to leave.

Her particular malfeasance? She was wearing a T-shirt that said Support the troops - defending our freedom!

Don't you love it? She got the boot while professing the party line. Censorship for everyone! ...

In the end, sanity won the day. Police said neither "guest" should have been confronted about her "expressive' T-shirt. They dropped the charge against Sheehan and apologized to both. (Might the fact that they bagged an influential Republican's wife in the same net as a reviled antiwar icon have had anything to do with that? Just asking.)

Adair's discussions of the event are particularly interesting, because he was already familiar with Beverley Young and her husband. And it seems that the really do "support the troops" for real, not just by using that as a surrogate slogan for supporting Bush's war policies:

My cell phone rang in the middle of President Bush's State of the Union address. It was Beverly Young, cursing.

Beverly usually calls because an injured Marine needs help, or because there's been a bureaucratic foul-up that keeps a wounded soldier from getting what he or she needs. Beverly's cursing is a reflection of her passion.

It gets results. She persuaded her husband, Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores, to create a national bone marrow registry that has saved thousands of lives. A couple of years ago, she got him to change a law that required wounded soldiers to pay for their hospital meals.

This time, she was spitting mad. She had been ejected from the president's speech because she was wearing a "Support the Troops" T-shirt. She had told the cops, in her wonderfully blunt style, what they should do to themselves.

Adair reports that Congressman Young jumped to his wife's defense like a good Southern gentleman would be expected to do, apparently allowing his familial instincts override loyalty to the adoration of Dear Leader and all his works;

Young's husband, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, was unaware she was removed until after the speech. He said he was furious about the incident.

"I just called for the chief of police and asked him to get his little tail over here," Rep. Young said late Tuesday. "This is not acceptable."

Beverly Young said, "Wait until the president finds out."

Adair also shares a nice postscript to Young's experience:

Beverly is uncomfortable being compared with Sheehan. "I disapprove of everything she stands for," Beverly says. But she and Congressman Young say anyone - even Sheehan - should be able to wear any message at a Bush event, as long as they are not disruptive.

Beverly flew home to Pinellas County on Friday. When an aide called to make her reservation, the agent at US Airways had one request: Could Beverly wear the shirt?

One thing that bothers me about this story is the assumption that Young's T-shirt was self-evidently partisan. Carlton notes matter-of-factly that Young's "Support Our Troops" shirt was "professing the party line".

Adair writes that Young "often wears the T-shirts when visiting her husband at the Capitol and during her visits to see the wounded at military hospitals." But in the later article he says that she "was removed for a pro-Bush message".

Yes, it obviously true that Republicans dearly love to pretend that to "support the troops" you must cheer for Bush's policies. This hyper-partisan notion of supporting the troops struck the Reps as such a fun thing back during the Gulf War of 1991 that they just keep on doing it.

What's ironic now is that they increasingly find themselves required to hide behind a "support the troops" position. Because Bush's Iraq War is so unpopular, as is Bush himself, that they could hardly hope to win anyone over with overt pitches to support Bush's particular policies.

And it's pretty obvious that supporting American soldiers means many things, including concern for the health care of the wounded and otherwise damaged, recognizing the extreme burden that has been put on GIs having to serve multiple tours because the Republicans don't dare suggest that affluent Republican white folks should support the war by being subject to military conscription, and taking a serious and realistic look at the actual prospect for achieving Bush's phantom promise of total victory in Iraq.