Say Anything Blog

These people need to grow up.

The Hill - An aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was arrested on the West Front of the Capitol for disorderly conduct during President Bush's inaugural address last week.

The aide, Nathan Ackerman, is a television producer on the Senate Democratic Communications Committee --� an organization that was folded into Reid's new communications "war room."
About 20 minutes into Bush's speech, Ackerman, 36, and another man held up a sheet that said "No War." According to a Capitol Police report, Ackerman and another suspect "were blocking the view of the audience and they were engaged in a verbal dispute with members of the audience."

The report states that Capitol Police officers told Ackerman and the other suspect to relinquish the sign or be arrested but that "neither complied and both were placed under arrest." The report did not name either suspect, although Ackerman's identity was confirmed with the Capitol Police.

The other suspect had been standing on his chair and "continued to display the banner and argue with members of the audience" before the arrest, according to the report.

Ackerman's arrest was aired on national television by ABC News on Inauguration Day, although he has not previously been named or identified as a Senate employee.

The charge, a misdemeanor, carries a $25 fine. But it also brings some unwelcome publicity to Reid, who is trying to mount a unified party opposition to Bush's policies without resorting to tactics normally employed in the street. Ackerman said that he was acting on his own and that no one in Reid's operation encouraged him to undertake the protest.

One would hope that Sen. Reid's office would take the appropriate action and fire the offending employees, but seeing as how other congressional Democrats gave out inauguration tickets to protesters looking to disrupt I'm not going to hold my breath.

Unfortunately this sort of thing is more than a childish display of petulance for Democrats, it has become a tried-and-true political tactic for them.

(via David Limbaugh)