Interesting tidbits from the Wash. Post about the "Freedom" Walk

[Bleacher Creature]

Not a pro-war rally??? Think again. Check out these two articles.
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At 9/11 Walks, Remembrances Stream Forth
Thousands in D.C. and Va. Honor Victims, U.S. Troops

By Petula Dvorak and Nia-Malika Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 12, 2005; Page B01

<SNIP>

On the Pentagon walk, helicopters flew overhead and dozens of police officers carrying many plastic handcuffs, ready to make arrests, smiled to walkers along the route. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld joined the walk and was treated like a rock star, hounded by passersby (sic) who begged his Secret Service detail to snap their photos with him.

"I wish I remembered my permanent marker so he could sign my T-shirt," one woman lamented after shaking Rumsfeld's hand. Patricia Rivera, 26, an Air Force enlistee, gasped and said: "Oh, my. What an honor! What an honor!" after having her photo taken with Rumsfeld.

A few war protesters who registered for the event turned their Freedom Walk shirts inside-out and, using black markers, replaced the shirt's red-and-blue logos with their own political sentiments.

Their presence prompted an occasional verbal parry. One flash point was along Independence Avenue, where a few people shouted and held up signs critical of the war and the Bush administration.

"USA! USA!" marchers chanted in reply. "Mindless idiots!" a man shouted at the protesters.

<SNIP>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091100508.html
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Clint Black's True Colors
Patriotism Sets the Tone at Pentagon-Sponsored Concert

By Mark Jenkins
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, September 12, 2005; Page C04

<SNIP>

The Pentagon organized the walk and concert, and it wasn't hard to read the sympathies of Black or the crowd that stayed for his entire 80-minute performance. The afternoon's loudest cheers were for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who received a standing ovation but whose invocation of John F. Kennedy was greeted with silence. The second biggest response greeted Black's wife, the TV actress and sometime singer Lisa Hartman Black, who entered midway through "When I Said I Do" to duet on that tribute to matrimony. By the time she appeared, the event had simply become a Clint Black show, something that didn't hold everyone's attention.

Although a contingent of devoted fans stayed until the end, the crowd inside the fenced-off area dwindled over the course of the concert. Halfway through the performance, the nearly empty section of seats reserved for families of 9/11 victims was opened to all comers. While that moved a few people closer to Black and his eight-piece band, the rest of the area continued to empty.

<SNIP>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/11/AR2005091101350.html

[tuvor]

1. 13,000 registered, but only "thousands" showed up.

Maybe ten or eleven thousand folks, eager to show how much they believe in bush's war, enlisted that day...?

[fasttense]

2. I guess even right-wing contract and pentagon employees

get bored with Black. But this was really inappropriate. To organize a celebration and CW concert while hundreds of dead bodies lie in the street of New Orleans is just beyond my comprehension.

Germany had a large memorial service for the dead of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina victims. Why couldn't these organizers have done that, instead of celebrating their republican insensitivity.

It was almost as if they were celebrating the deaths of thousands of black people. It turned my stomach.

[radwriter0555]

3. Just remember, Hitler and Mao had LOTS of fans too...

*cough*

[rox63]

4. This line is telling

"the nearly empty section of seats reserved for families of 9/11 victims"

[buff2]

5. Another staged event and photo-op for the Reich Wing idiots

Geesus,that is truly pathetic. Rumsfeld isn't shit. Treated him like a ROCK STAR??? :spray: :rofl:

[bballny]

6. Hopefully on 9/24

we get 1,000,000 in attendance to show the contrast.

[LynneSin]

7. Oddly enough I was only able to find one picture of the crowd at the event

[donsu]

8. talk about strange.... only caught a few minutes of the marchers

as they wended their way between high chain link fencing. all with the same white t shirt on. had writing on the back. anybody know what the t shirts said?

made me think of the march of the mummys or something.

guess us taxpayers paid for the shirts and everything else.

[peekaloo]

9. What is this "treated like a rock star" shit the corporate hounds use?

Demagogue would be just as appropriate.