If you want to keep politics out of baseball, then don’t feature politicians as part of the presentation of a baseball game.
I thought it was Ann Richards, but I just saw a Time article that credited it to Jim Hightower, who was speaking of Bush pere.
I disagree. He was throwing out the first pitch because it’s a Presidential tradition. He’s was not there as a fan, like he was just sitting in the stands or even in the broadcast booth.
ETA: Forgot to give my view. Booing Bush at the game might be a little tacky, but if I’d been there, I probably would have booed or mumbled (or shouted) something obscene.
We don’t need a leader to rally behind. We’re grownups.
What we need are public servants who do their jobs and whom we can make clear our displeasure when they’re doing their jobs in a way we don’t like.
I didn’t intend that anyone was to think I coined the phrase “born on third base and thought he hit a triple”! I ought to have put quotation marks around it, I guess. I always thought it was brilliant but I confess I didn’t know who came up with it.
And while it is particularly apt to Mr. Bush, I’m sure we all know a few other people it could apply to.
I would have booed, too. Loud and long. With the odd obscenity tossed in for variety. As a Canadian, I feel that he was about as ill-mannered a man as I ever saw, in the days right after 9/11. The** least** of his crimes, perhaps, but not forgotten.
On a related note, the reception Bush got at the ballpark Sunday night was downright polite when compared to Herbert Hoover’s in 1932. Hoover not only got flack from people angry about his failure to successfully combat the Depression but also from beer-thirsty fans opposed to his unwaivering support for Prohibition. All during Hoover’s stay at the game, loud jeers alternated with chants of “We want beer!” until he made an early departure.
I’ll probably get a few years in purgatory for agreeing with that. With the addendum that they shoot Cheney too.
Really?
I don’t see ‘participating in photo ops at baseball games’ listed as one of the duties of the President in Article II, section 2-3 of our Constitution.
It’s all in the penumbra.
Well, if they can tell me that I’m really never off duty, then the same should go for Bush.
If I make a poor decision that gets one person killed for no good reason I can be assured that they’ll throw the book at me. I’ll be held accountable and you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll pay for it. Bush has managed to kill several thousand Americans and a huge number of Iraqis for no good reason. If getting booed is the most awful thing done to him for it he’s lucky.
Boo him? Absolutely. The pity is that it wasn’t “Bring A Basket Of Rotten Fruit to The Game” day at the park.
Of, course, the Secret Service may have had a problem with that.
Well, then, you agree that it’s ultimately Bush’s fault for maintaining a dissent-free bubble around his public political functions.
(I originally put a question mark there, but I edited it to a period upon realizing that no other answer is supportable.)
I personally wouldn’t have booed the man, but I don’t blame the ones who did. Then again, I also stopped yelling at the umpires by the time I was 10.
Why yell “kill the umpire”? The umpire’s never killed anybody.
Okay, as the citizen of a constitutional monarchy, I take issue with this. We don’t boo the Queen because, as well as being our figurehead, she has devoted her life to serving our country immaculately for over 50 years and has earned our respect. If she’d behaved with half the stupidity and arrogance of Bush, I’d be right at the front throwing rotten tomatoes at her. Let’s not start inferring that only a country with a US-style model of democracy has the right to abuse their head of state.
And while I’m on the subject, does anyone agree that this is one of the inherent problems with having the offices of Head of State tied up with Head of Government? You vote for your Head of Government, so should feel entitled to hold him to account, and yet feel the need to doff your cap to him because he’s Head of State.
They shouldn’t have booed him. It was a ballgame. They should have heckled him.
“Hey Bush! Yeah, you! You SUCK, Bush! Go back ta the minors! Go back to ya bush league state goverment, ya lousy bum!”
“Hey Bush, won any wars lately? To bad ya don’t fight wars like ya clear brush!”
“We want a President, not a twenny percent of the time Crawford resident!”
Why would you feel the need to “doff your cap” to the head of state ? Or show them any respect at all, unless they’ve earned it ?
You don’t boo the Queen, but I assume you’d boo the PM? Outside of Parliament, that is.
Here’s proof.
For years, civil libertarians on this board have pointed out that Bush and Cheney have been systematically protected from contact with, or even proximity to, protesters. Conservatives called us paranoid foilhatters, and other skeptics hollered for proof. Here it is. The ACLU used the Freedom Of Information Act to obtain the Presidential Advance Manual from October 2002. It has been standard policy to round up dissenters, and corral them far enough away to make it seem that everyone agreed with the administration.
http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/silenced.html
We weren’t fibbing. The opening night ball game was a rare opportunity to publicly confront GWB with dissent. If I had been there, I would have booed him. I would not have thrown things, because that disrepects the game. I would not have cussed him, because there are always children in the crowd. I would have yelled loud enough for him to hear my anger from the top row. Go home, ya bum, ya!
So booing a president in a public forum is inappropriate? Gee, the next thing to happen might be taking his picture at a public forum will land in trouble, eh?
Oops!