Posted on 11/21/2007 1:59:43 PM PST by doug from upland
Bridge Ladies Slammed for Anti-Bush Sign Richard Kim
"WE DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH." Those words were handwritten on the back of a menu by the US women's bridge team and held aloft during the award ceremony at the world team championships in Shanghai last month. The team had just won the tournament, destroying Germany in the final, and were making what they thought was a small political statement. It wasn't a particularly radical message (who else didn't vote for Bush?), and it was made spontaneously, in a moment of international goodwill and humor.
As today's NYT chronicles, the United States Bridge Federation was not amused. Its president, Jan Martel, and executive board are pushing for tough sanctions against the entire team--a one-year suspension, plus a one-year probation, 200 hours of bridge-related community service and a formal apology. Bridge Federation lawyer Alan Falk threatened team members with "greater sanction" if they reject the Federation's offer. Team members have been accused by other players of "treason" and "sedition," according to the NYT. On message boards they've been compared to the Dixie Chicks and Tommie Smith and John Carlos--US sprinters who raised a fist in salute to Black Power at the 1968 Olympics and were subsequently ejected from the games.
This is not your grandmother's card game! I've dabbled in the world of bridge myself, and as anyone who's played a tournament can tell you--bridge is ruthless. Little old ladies, so sweet pre-game, will mercilessly ruff you up once the cards are dealt. But what are the folks at the Bridge Federation thinking? The game's logic is punitive (you get spanked for bidding too high), but the game itself should not be--particularly on matters of free speech. Nothing makes the game look more backwards, small-minded and elitist than punishing a championship team for using their moment of glory to send a political message well within the mainstream of American society. What's next? Banning certain t-shirts? Buttons? Maybe bridge should only be played in uniform?
But take heart, the fabulous ladies at the center of this controversy aren't ready to make nice, and I'm glad they're putting up a fight. All across this country the common but courageous dissent of citizens is being censored and attacked. Anti-war vets calling for withdrawal from Iraq were banned from a parade in Long Beach, CA. High school students in Chicago are threatened with expulsion for staging a peaceful anti-war protest. More than a dozen anti-war protesters, fittingly wearing gags over their mouths, were arrested outside of Boston's city hall.
And the list goes on. As individual incidents, each provoke a momentary pang of sympathy, a head nod, maybe an exasperated email to your bridge buddies. But taken as a whole, I suspect it adds up to a more disturbing picture--of a nation that went quietly mad, except for a few who spoke up and were ostracized for it; of a country where politics became so estranged from everyday life, that the ordinary expression of it was called treason.
If you're mad as hell and want to support the US women's bridge team--email Jan Martel (President, United States Bridge Federation) at janmartel@comcast.net and the board at board@usbf.org. Left-leaning, free-speech loving bridge players are especially encouraged!
Once She Who Must Not Be Named is in power, you betcha these will happen...
More like boorish and petulant behavior.
If they’re so tough and ruthless a one year suspension should be a walk in the park.
Americans must stop bending over for these minority fools. I am glad the Bridge Association is putting the hammer down on these pathetic schrews.
The Federation caved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/crosswords/bridge/21bridge.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Darn, I forgot to post the picture. Be right back.
Are we tossing our decks of cards into the parking lot and running over them with steamrollers yet?
These idiots should realize the governing body of their game is a PRIVATE organization. No First Amendment argument prevents them from doing exactly what they want in the matter of disciplining the players. And I’m sure they’ll be suspended from play while they make their inevitable [and hopefully, futile] trip to the courts. .
No one is trampling these “ladies”’ free speech rights. They are free to say what they wish when they are not representing the privately-organized Association under the auspices of which they were even AT the tournament in the FIRST place. They knew perfectly well that the rules of that Association — to which they willingly belong, and whose benefits they were all too thrilled to accept — forbid any political or other messages like the one at issue.
And The Nation knows better. If these ladies had put up a sign saying “We Support President Bush” or the like, they wouldn’t be defending the ladies’ “free speech” rights, etc.
We were in China a year and a half ago. Our guide, from Shanghai, who led us around for three or four days, was very knowledgeable about American history, thought the US had the best form of government, and also praised President Bush for taking the hard stand that needed to be taken in the war on terror. His dream was to come to the US sometime. These women look like fools.
I bet the one on the right votes for bush all the time.
It seems like everyone has got an opinion these days that no one wants to hear.
Is that Carl Sagan on the right?
How do you drag politics into a bridge championship? Libs are deranged.
May he someday be able to come here and be a citizen.
Same thing? I’ve not seen that before.
Maybe its just me, but I just can’t give a crap about the Bridge Ladies B.D.S. I mean, c’mon! Bridge!?!? Eh, BFD.
I wouldn’t hit any of that.
Is this what they mean when they say they’re not playing with a full deck?
No kidding. Especially when it involves “200 hours of bridge-related community service”! WTF is “bridge-related community service”?
“fat bitches” in Yiddish accoring to Yiddish translator
oy vey version of the Jersey Girls
Thanks. I’m on board approving that new definition.
That's uncanny! LOL!
They need to shut up and play Bridge.
bunch of silly cows...
See....when a male Freeper posts a comment that he wouldn’t “hit” some females or another....I always must muse...
So toddlintown is one so handsome a dude that women faint at his very presence, their legs spread without warning that he may “hit” them with the wonder of his male essence.
These women are idiots. How they look is irrelevant and further, every one of them emailed me to tell me that wouldn’t hit “toddlintown” if he were the last male on the planet.
Sorry.
this wouldn’t have been allowed during WWII. Sedition is sedition.
See post #6.
Nothing will happen to them.
“See....when a male Freeper posts a comment that he wouldn’t “hit” some females or another....I always must muse...”
Tight britches today? It’s a take-off on a popular Clinton riff that runs throughout FR posts.
BTW, I’m an Adonis, but you’ll need your beer goggles.
P.S. I still wouldn’t hit any of that.
Did these courageous gals protest China’s human rights abuses while in Shanghai?
I saw these disgusting pigs on Olbermann. I don’t think they should have been let back into the country. You don’t even have to like Bush to detest their actions. I think they should be heckled and pelted with tomatoes everywhere they go in this country.
Well I’ll allow as I started it.
Here’s the scoop....and the women on FreeRepublic will most agree as I’ve discussed this with plenty....
When a guy states, either in person or on a computer thread, that he wouldn’t “hit” that....the “That” being a female human being....the world must assume that the female called so demeaningly as “that” would open her legs willingly and with great love should the handsome male so stating his “decision”....well one must assume that there was a decision to be made.
IE...the female WOULD, if the male gift to femalehood so deigned, agree to be “hit” on by he whose presence drives away the very clouds in the sky and makes the sun blush with his beauty.
I think it’s audacious and I think males who post or talk like that are a real turnoff.
But you weren’t trying to fight so I’ll accept that I’m perhaps off.
I don’t think much of guys who are so full of themselves but hey, I’m nobody.
Or is it just a typical horse-faced Gyno-Dem?
Painting the Golden Gate with Chinese red-lead, using toothbrushes?
“I think it’s audacious and I think males who post or talk like that are a real turnoff.”
When I come into a room, women...whoops! Here’s comes the wife...and she might hit me.
I'm Jewish and want to spit in their faces. I bet you they are Deformed JINOs and not real religious Jews at all.
I think the whole “I’d hit it” schtick is funny. Just because most women probably wouldn’t “hit” back doesn’t make it less funny.
Men don’t walk up to women and ask to “hit it.” When they do, they get slapped (rightfully so.) Any intelligent man knows how to talk in front of a lady in a way that doesn’t make her uncomfortable.
The women in that picture look like the type who desperately need to be “hit” the most. That just adds to the hilarity of the joke.
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