HUMMER BUMMER

Maureen Dowd of The New York Times provides a peek into how the Bush administration treats family of soldiers killed in Iraq:

... Sue Niederer, 55, of Hopewell, N.J., got handcuffed, arrested and charged with a crime for daring to challenge the Bush policy in Iraq, where her son, Army First Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, died in February while attempting to disarm a bomb.

She came to a Laura Bush rally last week at a firehouse in Hamilton, N.J., wearing a T-shirt that blazed with her agony and anger: "President Bush You Killed My Son."

... She wanted to know why the Bush twins weren't serving in Iraq "if it's such a justified war," as she put it afterward. The Record of Hackensack, N.J., reported that the mother of the dead soldier was boxed in by Bush supporters yelling "Four more years!" and wielding "Bush/Cheney" signs. Though she eventually left
voluntarily, she was charged with trespassing while talking to reporters.

Now, apparently, speaking to the media is an arrestable offense.

Crackdowns on free speech appear to be growing in number as our increasingly intolerant political climate turns nastier, even in New York.

Newsday reports the plight of Georgi Page, a single protester taking aim at the oil aspect of this war by dressing up in a "Bummer" costume in front of a Hummer dealership.

After about 30 minutes, a police captain approached, told her she was causing an obstruction, and arrested her. Her Hummer costume was discarded and her "Vampire Utility Vehicles" sign bagged as evidence while Page, handcuffed and by now near tears, was loaded into a police van.

All evidence of the illegal arrest conveniently disappeared after Page was released.

When she asked police officers for records related to her arrest, Page said, "They were like, 'What are you worried about? You're free.' I was like, 'I shouldn't have been arrested.' Their attitude was, 'Move on.'"

This is a free society, folks. Yet you can be arrested for no reason, despite our inaliable Constitutional protections.