Thanks to GG & Salon for bringing attention to these abusive actions. I followed some protest groups in Denver before and during the DNC. Food Not Bombs cofounder Keith McHenry told me that one of the local women for that group was also "visited" by cops just prior to the Convention in Denver. I didn't get the impression from him that it was any where near as forceful or abusive, but I never had a chance to interview her directly. McHenry is regularly harrassed, has served time in prison, and is on a terrorist watch list. All this for being a modern Dorothy Day.

Here's a post from the DNC:

http://www.playboy.com/blog/2008/08/denver-food-not-bombs-1.html

Having just suffered a week of surreal bicamerality--what the networks and large newspapers reported vs. what we were all experiencing on the ground, especially outside the DNC security zones--I know that reporting like yours is more vital than ever. Thank you.

I appreciated reading this account from the ground. After covering the DNC as a blogger, I'm even more vigilant about the disconnect between journalism and media narratives. This distinction is ruthlessly relevant for this campaign--and for correcting the course of our nation. A clause like "according to media interviews and reports, they are flocking in droves to the McCain/Palin ticket," is extremely dangerous, in my opinion. My initial training was as a fact-checker, so my instinct is to view a line like that one as suspiciously fuzzy. Sure, people are saying this in interviews and others are reporting that its been said: that doesn't make it true. We are complicit when we recycle such storylines. That's how they calcify into facts and end up shaping public opinions.