Of course the author of this story, Gerry Smith of the COX Washington Bureau, spun it to make it look like Diane Baker (61 year-old from Dallas, TX) is the victim here:

Four months ago, Baker was one of 71 people arrested during a protest in Washington for crossing a police line to sit on the steps of a Senate office building.

As punishment, the 60-year-old was sentenced to sweep the streets of the nation’s capital for eight cold, blustery hours Tuesday.

“I’m a rather fragile, small woman,” said Baker, a hospice chaplain at United Church of Christ in Dallas. “Being a minister, I offered to do counseling, but this is what they gave me.”

Baker, a mother of four and grandmother of two, suffers from myoclonic epilepsy, a degenerative muscle condition that causes her voice to quiver and hands to shake. As she signed in to begin her community service, she struggled to write her name.

Boo-fucking-hoo. I hope they made her pay her own airfare to-and-from Texas. The woman broke the law — knowingly and deliberately broke the law. She should just shut up and pick up those cigarette butts off the ground.

According to the article, this wasn’t her first time in trouble with the law either:

Her arrest in September was just another small consequence in a lifetime of civil disobedience. She has had handcuffs slapped on her wrists 25 times, she said.

In a “lifetime of civil disobedience”. I like the way Smith phrases that. No bias there, no Sir. Another less biased reporter might have phrased it, “in a lifetime of criminial and illegal behavior”.

Maybe next time she can figure out how to express her free speech rights without breaking any laws. Of course, that wouldn’t get her picture in the paper, would it?

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 | Trackback |