The following report is from a protestor who attended the Sarah Palin book signing this morning at the BJ's at Fair Lakes Shopping Center in Fairfax, Virginia. I thought it was worth passing along. Well, a friend and I got to the book signing around 8:30 am...there was plenty of parking and looked to be about 200-250 people in line. No evidence of anyone camping out, but there were port-a-potties set up in the BJ's parking lot. After cruising around a bit, we decided to plant ourselves right in front of the store. When we held up our signs, we immediately got boos, and one guy yelled out a typical "welfare" comment...needless to say, none of us are on welfare! Some people remarked we should go home, others said they would pray for usFor more on Palin's appearance in Fairfax, see Talking Points Memo and the Washington Post.
We were only out about a minute, when a police officer came up and stated that Shopping Center management AND BJ's would not allow us on their property or sidewalks, but they had an area set up for protesters at the BACK of the parking lot! Yup, you got it right...patriotic, free speech lovin', "I will not sit down and shut up" Sarah Palin will not allow us to practice our constitutionally protected right of free speech anywhere near her book signing! I assume this was probably the case at many of them.
The media found us, including the Washington Post, United Press International, and Talking Points Memo. Some passers by were simply Saturday shoppers who had no clue what was going on, and we did get some thumbs up and thumbs down signs from folks in cars. There was no Going Rogue bus, no rope line meet and greet...in fact Sarah went in the back entrance according to someone who was already inside.
All in all, it was a worthwhile outing...snow was really starting to come down, and since we got our media coverage, we packed it in!
h/t: Photo courtesy of Beanhammer on Flickr
