Posted on 08/19/2005 12:18:08 AM PDT by BillF
FReepers of the DC Chapter, reinforced by other patriots, FReeped a Moveon.org event at the White House and nearby Lafayette Park. Moveon had planned candlelight vigils across the nation to support Cindy Sheehan's demand that President Bush meet with her again, although many of the supporters don't even realize that he did meet with her already. By actually daring to present an opposing viewpoint, we successfully prevented the Moron.org people from getting a completely free ride in the media. At one stage, a leftist was so belligerent that a police officer ordered him away.
Our focus was on supporting the troops and their mission in Iraq, not Cindy Sheehan.
The honor roll of those in attendance: Landry Fan, tgslTakoma, daughter of tgsl, maica, Justanobody, Nina0113, Fraxinus, AlwaysFree, Christopher Lincoln, BufordP, his friend Greg, lurker Andi of Andi's World blog (a great news and military support blog), Iraq War veteran Kevin, his fiancé Cindy and her son, kristinn, a mother and her 3 children, a father Tim and his son, and BillF. We were honored to have Kevin, who lost both legs to a hand grenade attack while he was a soldier in Baghdad, join us.
Six of our twenty-three participants were people who happened by and decided to join us. There were others who wanted to join us, but could not stay. One young man with flowers to take to his waiting wife greatly supported our efforts. Numerous veterans and active duty military applauded our efforts. A British man appreciated us being there to counter the "zanies" as I believe he called the other side. The gentleman is a member of British SAS (Special Airborne Service, the British Army's Special Forces). I'm usually thanking only American vets, but I thanked him for his service because SAS are some of best allies that we could ever have. Another gentleman said that he was a Vietnam vet. As I thanked him for his service, he thanked me for being there and said, "I wish you guys had been active 35 years ago to support the Vietnam War troops."
[CLICK ON A PHOTO TO OPEN A LARGER VERSION IN A NEW WINDOW, except any photo marked "not hyperlinked." Click on another photo and its larger version should open in the same window that the first enlarged photo did. Note that some of the wider photos may open in a window wider than your screen and you can use a horizontal scroll bar to see parts.]
Early on, we were in Lafayette Park with the White House behind the sign and the Washington Monument peeking above the trees.
(L-R) Fraxinus, tgslTakoma, Landry Fan, Nina0113, Justanobody, and daughter of tgsl around tgslTakoma's MOAB
(Mother of all Banners).
From another angle, showing the White House in the background.
| The leftists were staging at the north end of Lafayette Park as we stood in the middle per above photos. The White House is just south of the park. When we were at the above location, kristinn gave numerous interviews. The NY Times and local radio WTOP interviewed me. The NYT also talked to kristinn. Although nothing from either of us or even a mention of our counter-protest made it into the NYT story (click here registration required), the story was incredibly short considering all the efforts made by the leftists. If the rest of the MSM covers the MoveOn vigils as lightly, it means that the Sheehan effort is not considered important and will be getting less and less coverage as time proceeds. Leftists kept coming over to argue with us as shown in photo at left. The flower shirt guy told us that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not an airplane, on 911. I just laughed. The Park Police had told us that we had to move the MOAB (huge banner) out of the park. We then marched it over closer to the White House and onto Pennsylvania Ave, now a pedestrian area in that section of the road. |
kristinn at left argues with Harley shirt guy and flower shirt guy |
[Sound files in WAV format are included below. Left click and they should play, Right click and select "save as" to save them to your computer for later playing.]
SOUND FILE (319 K, 29 sec): Kristinn at his best debating a leftist (I think it was the Harley shirt guy in photo above right) about Iraq.
SOUND FILE (365 K, 33 sec): Flower shirt guy (photo above right) accuses U.S. troops of killing civilians by firing indiscriminately. When Kristinn disputes that, the Flower shirt guy says to ask the troops at Walter Reed, leading us to great laughter because we go to Walter Reed every Friday and the troops tell us the opposite. (See here for our latest report by clicking here: 4-Corner FReep of Code Pink's Quagmire at Walter Reed, Aug 12 (Heavy graphics, Join us Aug 19!.)
After the move to Pennsylvania Ave, daughter of tgsl (partially behind flag), AlwaysFree, Fraxinus, Greg (friend of Buford),
BufordP, unknown woman passer-by, Landry Fan, Nina0113, Justanobody, maica, Cindy, Kevin, Cindy's son, and kristinn
I didn't take photos of the leftist crowd, but, after we moved to Pennsylvania Ave, the leftists moved from the other side of the park to Pennsylvania Ave, right next to us and kept coming to argue and accost us. Then, they repeatedly came over to argue with us. There were at least two hundred of them, maybe some more. However, I doubt that their turnout was much higher than at the left's Downing Street Memo Rally FReeped by DC Chapter on June 16 of this year. And we all remember how that created a huge power shift. Not.
The left have tried Abu Graif, Rather's forged documents, GITMO, the Downing Street Memo, and Karl Rove (i.e., Valerie Plame), but Cindy Sheehan is the "now thing." One wonders what the flavor of the month will be next. Of course, sometimes they recycle these issues. Each time the leftists are convinced that this is the issue that they can use to impeach and remove President Bush. I guess that they want a President Cheney, but no, apparently that's not the case. They want to impeach everybody until a Democrat (John Kerry, Algore, or?) comes to power. That's really going to happen in their dreams only.
Leftists at left of photo, AlwaysFree holding flagpole, Fraxinus, Greg, and BufordP.
|
Mother in blue joined us with her 3 kids, |
The Mother's other two kids on right were |
maica, Mother in blue, daughter of tgsl, |
|
Kevin interviewed by channel 7 reporter.
|
Kevin being interviewed by Dana Milbank of the |
At the second location, reporters for both local channel 7 and the Washington Post interviewed Kevin and others of us. Click here for Pyro7480's outstanding screen captures from the channel 7 report.
Click here for the Washington Post story (registration required), whereas a thread about the story is here. The story quoted Kevin and included the following, which is yet another reason to applaud tgslTakoma for her brilliant MOAB and kristinn for his great ability to handle the press:
Kristinn Taylor does [understand Vietnam references]. An organizer for FreeRepublic.com, a MoveOn.org counterpart on the right, he recruited a small group of conservatives to hold a counterprotest last night; they stood beneath the statue of Andrew Jackson and held a banner, stitched from three bedsheets, proclaiming: "God Bless Our Soldiers Liberating the World of One Tyrant at a Time."
Taylor handed out pictures of what he said was Sheehan meeting Bush. "You can see they're holding hands, and she's leaning into the kiss," he said, outlining his case to undermine Sheehan's credibility. Still, he acknowledged, "You've got a grieving mother. She is a catalyst for them." [emphasis added]
[end of indent]
The story was less biased than most from the Washington Post, but Milbank could and should have included the fact that Sheehan met with President Bush once. She admits the first meeting and Milbank can check out AP and other stories about that, probably some in his own paper. Instead, that important fact is nowhere in the story.
|
kristinn, back of latex-wearing guy, and |
To say that this latex-wearing guy was |
Nasty is belligerent in the extreme |
| The latex-wearing in the above three photos (back to camera in left photo) was part of an argument involving kristinn and another leftist. The conversation went something like this: kristinn says: You're stabbing the troops in the back. Latex guy: That was a slogan from the National Socialists. [Thus, implying that we're Nazis.] I then moved in and argued one on one with Latex so that kristinn could argue with the other leftist. Below is a paraphrased, shortened form of the conversation that followed. I said: And yet you guys are socialists. Latex: How do you know that I'm a socialist? I: Well, you're out here with socialists. Latex: What do you know about me? I: I know that you're a leftist. Latex: How do you know that I'm a leftist? I: From what you're arguing. Latex: You know nothing about me! I: OK, then tell me what your politics are. Latex: I thought you knew. I: I thought I did, but enlighten me if I was mistaken. Latex: I thought you knew! [angry, spewing venom, practically ready to fight] I started to take his photo, just in case he got violent and I said: Tell me your politics. |
Tim, Gulf War I veteran, and his son were visiting from out-of-town |
|
Latex: Are you going put me on your website? I'll put you on my website. [see center photo in above row, him holding his camera] I: I'm not sure that you rate at this stage! [I'll explain below why I'm using the photos.] Latex: OK, but you do! You are getting on! ["Getting on" his website as if it's a threat to have my photo on his website] It ends later with Latex saying: "Dip****!" and slithering away temporarily. I replied: Oh, you're hurting my feelings now. Later, the Gulf War I veteran, Tim, had a run-in with Latex. Tim (see photo above right), who had joined us along with his son, said that Latex touched Tim's son. Apparently, Latex wanted to get closer to argue with someone else and tried to simply move the young lad aside. Tim told Latex to keep his hands off the boy. Latex stopped touching the boy. Tim reported the events to a nearby uniform Secret Service officer, but Latex was apparently lost in the crowd at that stage. A short time later, Latex had started to bike away, but came back to belligerently argue. At that stage, Tim told the officer that the guy was back. The officer walked over to him and said, "OK, you made your point, now hit the road!" Latex biked away as we suppressed the urge to laugh at the leftist loser. Oh wait, maybe he's not a leftist. He did get his wish to have his photo posted. Based on being told to hit the road by a police officer, I decided that he did rate. I hope he's happy. (Maybe, if he reads this, he will direct me to his conservative website and I can apologize for my assumptions about him.) The Latex experience reminds me of Doctor Raoul's statement: "In my adult life, the only time that I've been hit or challenged to a fight, it's been a peace protestor." Fortunately, it did not get that out of hand this time around. |
Christopher Lincoln with the White House behind him |
| >SOUND FILE (404 K, 37 sec): tgslTakoma argued with an anti-war guy who claims that his wife is in the military and demands that we not say that we are more patriotic than his family. Of course, no one had called him unpatriotic. He doth protest too much. He apparently thinks that he is unpatriotic and therefore wrongly accuses us of calling him that. I think that the guy in this sound file is the same guy as seen in Pyro7480's screen capture of local channel 7 in the photo at the right. At one stage, the leftists started singing songs. tgslTakoma went to the NY Times reporter and said, "Didn't they say it was going to be a silent candlelight vigil." "Yeah, you're right" was the response. Later the leftists started chanting. As shown in the below photos, DC Chief Code Pinko, Gael Murphy, came over. > SOUND FILE (843 K, 77 sec): Murphy says the biggest terrorist is the person who sells the most guns. kristinn and tgslTakoma discuss guns as Murphy makes some incredibly sexist comments. I called her a sexist after her especially ironic comments. |
NOT HYPERLINKED
Pyro7480's great screen capture of tgslTakoma at |
|
kristinn debates Pinko Gael Murphy as Tim and his son watch.
|
DC Chief Code Pinko, Gael Murphy looks like she's overdue |
|
Andi of Andi's World blog (a great news and military support |
BufordP talks on the phone. His plan was to break kristinn's |
A funny moment during the FReep was when a leftist argued with us, but then said, "I'll grant that you have the right to do what you're doing" as he walked away. He walked away too fast for me to sarcastically say "thanks for granting me that right."
Seriously though, the leftists can't stand the idea that someone would actually dare to demonstrate against them. Lenny Bruce's line about "liberals being so understanding that they can't understand anyone not as understanding as they are" is even more true for many of the leftists.
At the end, the leftists returned to their places to plot the impeachment of President Bush (I always want to ask "how is that working out for you?"). Meanwhile, many of the FReepers relocated to an undisclosed location for fun, food, and drink after yet another successful FReep.
Most excellent Buford. You guys are my heros.
Many direct hits as usual, DC Chapter! Eagles up!
Kevin Pannell for President!!!
Excellent report and photos, BillF. KUDOS to all of you and the others who joined in to counter the anti-war leftists -- FANTASTIC FREEP and the MOAB is magnificent in front of the White House!
FReep On!
Great strategery!
Here we are
I agree that the MOAB looks especially attractive with the White House as a back drop. We should take it to more places to see where else it looks good.
LOL. Good work.
Thank you so much! If I had known, this would have been so much more fun than what I did Wednesday night. From the report, it sounds like there was a lot going on. Always good to have lots of excitement!
Great report, and fast too! Sorry I didn't hear about it in advance or I would have tried to go, but your detail made it almost like being there!
;*)
How would it look in Crawford? Think they could fix one up in time for next weekend?
I love that shot with the Andrew Jackson equestrian statue in the background. Can you imagine if these marxist maggots were to come face-to-face with Old Hickory? I 'spect ol' Andy would do some serious name taking and ass kicking. And probably hang a few of 'em just for grins...
It would look perfect against a blue Texas sky! Get the sheets & spray paint. How do we ping the H.O.T. chapter?
I already pinged basil -- I'll give her a call later.
Sorry, that it was announced so late, the day before, but that was when we found out about the leftists' plans. Apparently, the leftists only announced the vigils a day or two before that. Pretty impressive for them to organize on such short notice.
I noticed that you are not on the DC Chapter ping list. Should I add you to it? That way, you'd get pinged to our announcements like that for the counterprotest.
Duh? Yes, please add me to the ping list!
Pinging some Texas Freepers who might be interested.
Thanks for linking the blueprint for the MOAB.
But for pete's sake, why don't you spend three bucks on a spray can trigger? You'll wonder how you ever lived without it! ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
