As political dissent goes, Carol Kreck’s “McCain = Bush” sign was pretty innocuous.
But that’s not the point.
As run-ins with the law go, her trespassing citation was relatively mild.
Yet that isn’t the point either.
At the Secret Service’s urging, Denver police deemed it necessary to oust Kreck — a 60-year-old student and librarian — from a public space Monday before John McCain’s town-hall meeting in Denver.
Not for shouting anything. And not for getting in anyone’s face.
Kreck was merely holding a sign that, for what it’s worth, plenty of folks would consider a compliment to the GOP candidate.
As it happens, the outdoor galleria where she was standing at the Denver Performing Arts Complex was the subject of a federal ruling proclaiming it a “non-public forum” or no-protest zone.
Never mind that the property is owned by the city. Never mind that McCain himself declared his meeting an open forum. And never mind that Kreck heeded police by not entering the event with her sign.
The law’s the law, city officials say, and the slope is ever so slippery. After all, they ask, what’s the difference between Kreck holding her placard at the complex and 300 protesters chanting to disrupt the event?
A lot, at least for anyone with even a bit of common sense.
I know Kreck, having worked with her for five years as a Post reporter.
Yes, she’s a lefty. (I can already see the eyes rolling among conservatives griping about the liberal media.) But she is far more journalist than troublemaker.
Because she is nearly deaf, she decided not to question McCain at his meeting. “I didn’t want to embarrass myself by asking something I didn’t realize already had been asked,” she said.
Clearly, Kreck is not the type of feces-throwing demonstrator the city fears will plague August’s Democratic National Convention.
That’s why the YouTube video of her ouster has had more than 102,000 hits. It’s also why MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” called McCain’s Denver appearance a “PR fiasco” and Kreck a “Democracy Superhero.”
But all that, too, is beside the point.
Because what happened Monday isn’t about Kreck, McCain or the arts complex’s questionable right-to-assemble rules.
It’s about stressed-out and starstruck local officials ceding power to outsiders pulling strings in the shadows.
The Kreck video first shows a complex guard saying McCain’s Secret Service agents asked for her removal, and then four Denver cops carrying out those wishes.
The event came days after Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper explained his failure to fulfill his pledge to demonstrators about the location of a parade route in August with these words:
“It’s not me. It’s the Secret Service who makes these decisions.”
And Kreck’s citation came the same day Englewood’s police chief convinced the City Council to pass an anti-picketing ordinance meant to control protesters in August. A note written by that city’s attorney’s office inexplicably says the language of the measure was “recommended by the DNC.”
Here we have the Secret Service telling Denver cops whom to oust from city property and party planners apparently writing ordinances for our suburbs.
Who is really running things around here this summer?
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
