snake Cheney and a kids summer camp episode

[donsu]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04193/344787.stm

Camp's opening gets tangled up in campaign stop

They may not have known it, but 60 children from some of Pittsburgh's poorest neighborhoods were in the thick of presidential politics for the past three days.

It all began at 4 p.m. Thursday with an urgent phone call. The Air Force's 911th Airlift Wing in Moon had decided the children could not begin their summer camp at the base tomorrow morning, as had been planned for five months.

Vice President Dick Cheney would be arriving then on Air Force Two to campaign in Pittsburgh. His presence would mean the children, part of the federally funded Weed & Seed program, had to find a different place to launch their camp.

Lt. Cathleen Snow, who coordinates press coverage at the base for landings such as Cheney's, said she decided that the expected crush of media and security personnel would strain the base staff. It would have been impossible, she said, to accommodate the children's camp and the vice president at the same time.

-snip-
---------------------------------------

the rest of the article tells how Weed & Seed, Kerry's group, the GOP went round and round on a new place - but Weed & Seed found a place and stuck to it saying:

"Our primary concern was the children, and that they not be jerked around," Farley said.

Chatman said he was especially annoyed by the alternate plans to remove and then return children to the base so they could be part of a political opportunity.

"We weren't going to be part of the jockeying they're doing," he said.
---------------------------------------


Lt. Snow made a bad decision to pick snake Cheney over the kids.

[sleipnir]

1. Weed and Seed??? WTF is going on? Sounds like a DEA operation.

Recruiting poor inner city kids to grow pot on a military base??!!

My stylish Tinfoil hat is on waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too tight. :evilgrin:

[Parche]

2. Camp

Maybe they were looking out for the kids, having to look at
Dickhead Cheney would scare anyone

[donsu]

3. you have a point but is the base so small that snake Cheney's

plane landing would be where the kids held camp. hardly. the Lt. talks about not having enough staff to cover both events. how much guarding could 60 kids/teachers need. it's not like they were out to get the snake. or where they considered possible terrorists?

[JHB]

4. Thank God there wan't a haircut involved!

I mean, the "liberal" media was all over Clinton for getting his hair cut on AF1 and ranting about his callousness at delaying all those people -- despite the fact that the only discernable delay was the flight of one unscheduled air taxi... for all of 2 minutes! -- I'd hate to think how the "liberal" media would react to throwing 60 poor kids out of their summer camp!

(/crickets chirping)
Yes, I really DO hate to think how they'd react to this....

[PA Democrat]

5. What a shame that the people in charge of the camp

would not participate in Karl Rove's latest photo op. He probably thought that have Dick Cheney appear with a bunch of kids might compensate for Dick's perpetual sneer and his fowl language.:puke:

[bleowheels]

6. Disgraceful. First they disrupt the poor kids' camp and then they

want to use them for a Cheney photo-op.

[proud patriot]

7. Why isn't this all over the news ?

:grr: