I'm afraid you'll find the Constitution has been in the White House and even Supreme Court outhouses being used as toilet paper for a lot longer than I've been alive, and I'm not young.

They talk as if it matters, but it doesn't. For instance, the Constitution gives Congress the ability to grant copyright "for a limited time." Before the 20th century it was twenty years. Now it's 170 years, far longer than a lifetime. But the Supreme Court ruled that "limited" means whatever the Congress says it means. Yes, and "I did not have 'sex' with that woman," right?

The fourth amendment says the cops need a warrant to search your posessions - but the court says, oddly, that your car can be searched at will. Never mind your underwear at the airport. Take off your shoes, please.

How about the right to a speedy trial? I guess for that Padilla guy, three years is "speedy." Ot the Gitmo detainees who have been locked up without charge for years?

Orwell was an optimist, I'm afraid.

So what can we do about this? I would write my representative, but I'm sure she's already up in arms about it. I would write the president, but he's in such a bubble he seems barely aware that at least half of us think he shouldn't be running this country AND I doubt his handlers would even let him read it. What country are we living in? Sometimes when I read stories like this I feel like I should start hiding my rock n' roll cds.

Oh, and did anyone else think that the president's comment about our anxiety during a time of war was hilarious? What war? I thought we "won" the war like 3 or 4 years ago?

House rules proscribe demonstrations. I used to work for a Senator. While leading tours, I was chastised for talking too loud in the gallery. The Capitol Police do not joke around. They are there to make sure that the business of the institution goes on, unmolested. Even Senators are limited in what they can and cannot say on the floor. For instance, the rules regulate the dress code to a very high degree in the Senate (just ask Ben Nighthorse Campbell)!

Sheehan has a right to free speech. The House of Representatives during the State of the Union does not have a duty to provide her with a forum to exercise that right.

By the way, the cases don't compare.

Fritz -
I agree that the cases are different as far as where the people were attempting their free speech. I think it's appropriate to prevent demonstrations from interfering with "the business of the institution", like protestors waving signs around, shouting into bullhorns, yelling at passersby, etc. I can see carrying that over into preventing people from wearing t-shirts with obscene pictures or words. I don't neccesarily agree with that, but I can accept it. However, I think that arresting someone for wearing a t-shirt that bears a statistic and a question about it (however unflattering to the administration) is beyond what I think the spirit of the law intended. If anything, ejecting her would have been sufficient. The amazing thing about our government is the supposed right to speak against it. Allowing her to remain would have shown some spirit, courage and backbone. Arresting her seems petty and emphasizes the fingers in ears, 'la la la, I can't hear you' attitude that people who can't take criticism adopt.

(Cough, cough) You may want to read this:
www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/01/D8FGK1NG0.html

Ok, I know I'm being very prolific on this topic but:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060201/ap_on_go_co/state_of_union_sheehan

ha ha... you beat me to it.

Please keep in mind:

Right to speak against.

Not equal to:

Duty to provide a forum for speaking.

That is the key here. Did she or did she not violate the rules of the House of Representatives? This is not a First Amendment issue. According to www.breitbart.com, the Capitol Police have apparently said no, she did not violate the rules of the House of Representatives. She is now free to sue for whatever damages she may have suffered for being in custody for four hours and not having been allowed to watch the speech.

From the link Fritz provided:

Sheehan's T-shirt made reference to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq: "2245 Dead. How many more?" Capitol Police charged her with a misdemeanor for violating the District of Columbia's code against unlawful or disruptive conduct on any part of the Capitol grounds, a law enforcement official said. She was released from custody and flew home Wednesday to Los Angeles.

Young's shirt had just the opposite message: "Support the Troops _ Defending Our Freedom."

I take issue with the idea that citing the number of dead troops and "Support the troops - Defending our Freedom" are "opposite message[s]," as if demanding our troops be brought home is "opposing the troops."

And at least one prominent Republican will agree with me:

"You can support the troops but not the president"
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)

I'm pretty sure the actions of one overzealous cop, for which his boss has publicly apologized, are not endangering the Constitution. But it's never too soon to freak out!

Fritz writes:

Sheehan has a right to free speech. The House of Representatives during the State of the Union does not have a duty to provide her with a forum to exercise that right.

By the way, that's bullshit. Sheehan was not getting up to the podium and haranguing the audience with her views. She was wearing a shirt. If you don't like the sentiments expressed on the T-shirt, you have a viable option: look the other way.

No one was forced to provide her a forum from expressing her opinions. She provided her own forum: her body. She didn't plaster her opinions on the walls. She wore them. As is her right to dress herself as she sees fit. You don't like it? Again, look the other way.

The House of Representatives and the Senate, as institutions that govern the behavior of people who enter upon their grounds, have the right to determine standards of appropriate dress and conduct. If they were to determine that her t-shirt was inappropriate, for whatever reason, and that reason was not particular to her, but general, and applicable to all visitors equally, it would not diminish her freedom of speech. The “no shirt, no shoes, no service” pledge of your local convenience store is an equivalent prohibition that is equally just. Just as I don’t have to look at Cindy’s t-shirt, she doesn’t have to attend the State of the Union. Cindy has no positive right to attend the State of the Union, nor does anyone not a member of Congress in good standing.

Fritz writes:

The House of Representatives and the Senate, as institutions that govern the behavior of people who enter upon their grounds, have the right to determine standards of appropriate dress and conduct. If they were to determine that her t-shirt was inappropriate, for whatever reason, and that reason was not particular to her, but general, and applicable to all visitors equally, it would not diminish her freedom of speech. The “no shirt, no shoes, no service” pledge of your local convenience store is an equivalent prohibition that is equally just. Just as I don’t have to look at Cindy’s t-shirt, she doesn’t have to attend the State of the Union. Cindy has no positive right to attend the State of the Union, nor does anyone not a member of Congress in good standing.

Wrong again, Fritz. The comparison to the "no shirt, no shoes" policy maintained by convenient stores has to do with health, hygiene and personal safety (liability for cutting ones foot on a broken bottle, for instace), not freedom of expression. The convenient stores care nothing about the sentiments expressed on the garments. Only about whether the person is respectably covered.

Also wearing a t-shirt, regardless of what is says, has nothing to do with behavior. Regardless of what garment I'm wearing, I can act the picture of cultured refinement, or so boorish as to be mistaken for a member of the second generation to stand upright. My clothes have nothing to do with behavior.

So, do you have any VALID comparisons? Can you find a public institution that rejects persons due to sentiments worn on the body? Because the ones you've provided simply don't compare.

If they have a dress code that objects to casual clothing, like T-Shirts, that's one thing. But if she's respectably covered, and T-shirts are permitted, then they have no issue (a conclusion that they themselves reached, since Sheehan was released, apologized to, and not charged).

Wrong again, Patrick. Laughable, in fact. In your haste to defend Cindy Sheehan, right or wrong, come Hell or high water, you have adopted her shrill, annoying, and intellectually dishonest habit of bypassing the central, important issue: the Senate and House of Representatives have the right to determine their own STANDARDS. Your average convenience store has one set of standards, based upon a certain, known set of criteria, including health and safety; the two Houses of our legislative branch have their own.

Just as an example, let me know why, according to your argument of respectable covering, the Senate had to change its rules of proper dress and decorum to allow Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell to wear a bolo tie. Senator Campbell has asthma, and finds a regular tie to be insufferable. Do you think that Senator Campbell has the right to wear whatever he wants, for whatever reason, including no tie at all, or does the Senate have the right to set appropriate rules for people entering upon its confines? The Senate is wonderful at accommodation, but do T-shirts, with manifest political connotations, go too far? I suppose that’s up to them to decide.

Listen, apparently the rules of the Senate and the House of Representatives did not in fact prohibit Sheehan's T-shirt. Her dress did not in fact violate the standards applied to visitors to the gallery. You’ll note, however, that if she would have begun writing, simply taking notes, she could have been expelled as well, because writing in the House Gallery is expressly against the rules. Sheehan notes this in passing in her various screeds that you can find on the Internet. Does the prohibition against note taking violate a visitor’s right to freedom of speech? Writing is protected, speech, is it not?

"This is not Nam. This is bowling. There are rules."

However, my argument is that the House of Representatives justifiably could have, written a rule to prohibit Cindy Sheehan’s T-shirt. Remember: Cindy Sheehan has an inalienable right to freedom of expression. She does not have an inalienable right to enter into the gallery of the House of Representatives.

This isn't, at root, a debate about freedom of expression. It is about the right of certain institutions to set their own rules for dress and behavior, and whether those institutions can enforce those rules on the public entering their confines.