We know our political debates are scripted but did you know that DC protests are too? Me neither. David Hardy on his time spent in DC:

One day their conversation went like this: “It’s all worked out. The protestors will come in as part of a White House tour group. They’ll send ten, perhaps twelve. At 9:15 they leave the tour group and go onto the White House lawn and sit down. At 9:30, Secret Service will tell them to leave, and four will refuse, the others will return to the group. At about 9:40 the four will be arrested, booked, and released.”

I was astonished … how could you predict these events, down to the minute? The Parks attorneys explained that in a DC protest of this type, all the details were negotiated in advance between the protestors and the government. It made it more convenient for everyone. The government tried to dicker them down on how many would stay and be arrested (less work for the agents), and they tried to dicker the government up on how long a time window between refusal to leave and arrest. There might be other terms to be worked out as well. But this way the media could be notified to show up at 9:30 for photos, or earlier for the story. If you didn’t coordinate — why, what if the media showed up and security was shorthanded and couldn’t make arrests for another hour? Or someone threw the timing off and arrested before the media showed up? Or somebody got hardnosed and instead of book and release, actually popped the protestors in jail? Much better to reach agreement in advance. Besides, by scheduling early in the day you ensure that the reporters have time to write the story.

Wow.

Posted in uncategorized on December 21st, 2005 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |