2 different groups of protesters got into MSG and disrupted Bush's speech

[yesthattom]

The speech broke down roughly into two parts, domestic policy and the war on terror. It was shortly after the president turned to the homeland-security section of the speech, talking about his strategy of “striking terrorists abroad so that we do not have to face them at home” that he was interrupted by the first of two protesters who had snuck into Madison Square Garden. Delegates vociferously shouted down both of them, seeming to rattle Bush and creating the momentarily jarring impression that the crowd was booing its own president.

It isn’t fair to hold President Bush responsible for, you know, maintaining tight security at a highly-sensitive target in the city of New York — after all, that had nothing to do with why the GOP chose the convention site, right? Still, he missed an opportunity for a Reaganesque impromptu moment, defusing the situation with a joke or rising above it with a remark about the liberties that our soldiers are defending. Instead, he simply plowed through his remarks — not quite a The Pet Goat moment, but not a display of great nimbleness either.

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,692070,00.html?cnn=yes

But my question is... how could they spend $70 million/day on security and TWO GROUPS get in?

Comments

RNC protesters

[cos]

Not enough background checks on the volunteers.

I was watching the speech from Ganny D campaign headquarters, and one of the people there was telling us there were protesters in the crowd and anticipating when they would show up. Apparently his daughter's boyfriend had gotten into the RNC as a volunteer, to protest (he wasn't one of the two last night, I think he sprang up during Cheney or Miller the night before). If anyone had googled on him, they'd have quickly found he was a progressive activist, and might have thought to ask him why he was volunteering for the RNC. Anyway, it was from him that our guy learned about the other protesters who were there, also as volunteers, waiting for Bush's speech.

Then again, maybe the people they hired to do background checks really were doing their job in a nonpartisan nonpolitical way, and simply trying to find out if any of the people they were looking into were actual threats to security, rather than merely to ideology :)

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

All the cops were too busy arresting protesters outside? Like the Bikes Against Bush guy, and putting them in Li'l Gitmo?