Viewpoint-based Exclusionary Determinations
Huh? Viewpoint-based Exclusionary Determinations? What are those, you ask? Apparently, they allow the president to eject people from public events if he doesn't like their point of view. And it's all constitutional.
At least, that's what lawyers for two Bush volunteers at a taxpayer-funded Bush event in Denver are arguing. The volunteer workers, Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman, ejected two Denverites because they arrived in a car with a "no blood for oil" bumper sticker. The event was about the president's plans for Social Security. This was back on March 21, 2005, and the two Denverites have filed a civil suit against Casper and Klinkerman.
The defendants are arguing that they didn't do anything wrong, because as volunteers at the event, they were just helping the president exercise his constitutional right to boot people from public events he's speaking at, if there's a chance they don't agree with him on all the issues.
But I think the defense attorneys said it best in their filing with the court:
The president may constitutionally make viewpoint-based exclusionary determinations in conveying his own message ... So in following the instructions of the White House and carrying out its viewpoint-based exclusions, Casper and Klinkerman did not violate any of plaintiffs' constitutional rights.
So can't we just give Casper and Klinkerman a break? They were just carrying out the White House's viewpoint-based exclusions at their instruction. And at no expense to the tax payer, I might add.
