Art Pottery, Politics and Food
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
 

A brief item in a January 15th New York Daily News column ties a happy bow on what could not have been a pleasant experience:

A Brooklyn woman who created a Web site proclaiming her love for White House political adviser Karl Rove has been questioned by the Secret Service. The presidential protectors contacted Kat Kinsman, a 31-year-old writer and Webmaster who has been carrying on a tongue-in-cheek imaginary affair with the 53-year-old Republican on her site, ilovekarlrove.com.
…Kinsman is actually a volunteer for Howard Dean's campaign, and she means it all in good fun. To its credit, the Secret Service got the joke. "It was clearly a political parody," Kinsman told us. "They had no problem with the content."

I really think it is shocking to contemplate that members of the President secret protective service subjected an ordinary person, simply exercising her constitutionally protected free speech rights, to an investigation and an interrogation without proper cause.
Could there be "a problem" with my content?
Or, yours?
I think many of us bloggers, using tracking software to monitor our sites, have noticed frequent visits from Hidden Referrers.
Would these Hidden Referrers harmlessly be just hackers masking their own true address or, maybe, government employees paid to track and report blog activities?
Are leg-irons in our future?
Widely unreported events in Reno, Nevada show authorities unnecessarily using the Patriot Act in an open and shut case of bribery involving local officials and a Reno strip club owner.
I’ve noticed Hidden Referrers appearing within days of using Mr. Rove or the Vice President’s name within my own published text.

Surely I’m being paranoid, as I'm several chapters into Kevin Phillips' excellent American Dynasty, for this morning’s White House Briefing in the Washington Post details the vast Rovian sense of whimsy.
Designated print pool reporter Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times described what happened yesterday after Air Force 1 landed in frozen Little Rock, AK:

Because of the foul weather, the pool was instructed to stay inside so that workers could de-ice the plane…senior advisor and White House political guru Karl Rove himself popped his head into the press cabin and snarled, "Weenies!" Chen described Rove's demeanor as "mocking disdain. . . . In the same vein, he also offered to take orders for hot drinks and blankets…on the tarmac, your pool had a third encounter with Mr. Rove," Chen wrote. " 'Oh yeah, you can get off the plane when it's 62 degrees,' he said with a laugh as he walked to the staff van."

That Karl, what a wacky dude, huh?

Artwork: ilovekarlrove.com
- posted by Sean @ 1:52 PM
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