Rumsfeld Heckled by Former CIA Analyst

Anti-war protester Gloria Tatum, left, is restrained by an unidentified woman after she disrupted a speech by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Thursday, May 4, 2006, in Atlanta. Anti-war protesters interrupted Rumsfeld's speech and one of them grilled Rumsfeld afterward about the Bush administration's Iraq policy. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

This is off Yahoo News:

ATLANTA - Protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence in an unusually vociferous display of anti-war sentiment.

"Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?" asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst, during a question-and-answer session.

"I did not lie," shot back Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern from the hall at the Southern Center for International Studies.

With Iraq war support remaining low, it is not unusual for top Bush administration officials to encounter protests and hostile questions. But the outbursts Rumsfeld confronted on Thursday seemed beyond the usual.

Three protesters were escorted away by security as each interrupted Rumsfeld's speech by jumping up and shouting anti-war messages. Throughout the speech, a fourth protester stood in the middle of the room with his back to Rumsfeld in silent protest. Officials reported no arrests.

Rumsfeld also faced tough questions from a woman identifying herself as Patricia Roberts of Lithonia, Ga., who said her son, 22-year-old Spc. Jamaal Addison, was killed in Iraq. Roberts said she is now raising her young grandson and asked whether the government could provide any help.

A protester opposed to the Iraq war confronted US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, pictured April 2006, as he gave a speech and accused him of lying over the reasons for the 2003 invasion.(AFP/File/Brendan Smialowski)

It is interesting that we are now starting to see the exposure of these protests, not that they have just started protesting against the Bush administration, but rather that the protestors are able to confront these administration officials, face to face. For the past five years, Bush administration officials have been able to keep the protestors away from public relations events. That has changed. Back on January 24, that I posted a story of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales being heckled by Georgetown University students criticizing the Bush administration's illegal NSA domestic spying on American citizens. I believe that was the first time I've seen a Bush administration official having to directly face a protest at a public event. Of course, we had Cindy Sheehan camping outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford Texas, as a demonstration against the Iraq war. But the President never confronted Sheehan. In fact, at just about every public even that President Bush has even attended, he has been shielded from any protest or dissent by selectively allowing only loyal supporters to these public events--even to the point where individuals had to sign statements affirming their loyalties towards the president, and anyone who question or refused to sign such statements were denied attendance, and escorted away from the event. Any protestors who wanted to demonstrate, had to do so well away from the president's view. So this Bush administration has been shielded from any dissent in the country.

And now Rumsfeld is politically attacked by dissenters. What does this mean? First, I'd say that the protestors are getting smart at how to infiltrate these public events so they can express opposition towards the Bush administration. They are learning that the way to get in is to project themselves as Bush supporters and make it through the loyalty oaths, and promised votes for Republicans, and then you can confront Gonzales, Rumsfeld, or even President Bush, where a real-estate broker Harry Taylor criticized Bush, saying, ""While I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water."

The second thing I would have to say is that we can expect more of these demonstrators forcing confrontations against President Bush, and his senior officials. With President Bush's public approval ratings heading down to 33 percent, and with a majority of the American public saying that the country is heading down the wrong path, what is it going to take to force these White House neoconservatives to listen? The problems this country faces will just get worst--more Americans will be killed in Iraq, energy prices will continue to rise, inflation is still a menace, wages among American workers still stagnate, and immigration reform continues to be a major concern. The Bush administration's PR team has a major problem. In order to increase the Bush administrations poll ratings and hopefully not face a Republican disaster during the midterm elections, they have to go out to the American public and try to sell their political talking points. But to go out on these public events, the Bush administration officials run an increasing risk of of face-to-face confrontations with demonstrators. If the Bush administration decides to barricade itself within the White House walls, it will increase the difficulty of presenting their message to a skeptical American public, reinforcing the belief that the Bush White House is in a state of a siege mentality. Please note, that I have not said anything about the message itself--a message that is rejected or derided by the American public is useless, no matter how the Bush White House tries to spin it.

So it will be interesting to see how many more face-to-face confrontations will occur between the Bush administration, and demonstrators.