St. Petersburg Times: (Bush-Cheney) Bumper sticker evokes road rage

[ryban]

TAMPA - Politics has always been divisive, splitting families and turning friend against friend.

This week, though, a Tampa woman learned that simple Bush-Cheney bumper sticker can bring trouble, if not danger, from a total stranger.

Police say Michelle Fernandez, 35, was chased for miles Tuesday by an irate 31-year-old Tampa man who cursed at her as he held up an anti-Bush sign and tried to run her off the road.

His sign, about the size of a business letter, read:

Never Forget Bush's Illegal Oil War Murdered Thousands in Iraq.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/10/Hillsborough/Bumper_sticker_evokes.shtml

[jus_the_facts]

1. sigh....our hypocrisy sometimes knows no bounds....

...he chased her in his CAR..wasting gas which is derived from the very oil he rails against * goin' to war for....each and every one of us who drives is guilty of exaserbating our current problems....the paradox of corporate control is insane yet we still feed on their agenda just the same. x(

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Still I admire his attitude. n/t

[Skittles]

4. bush/cheney stickers enrage me too

but come on, this behavior was dangerous and completely unacceptable

[Ganja Ninja]

7. I'm just being sarcastic.

The guy obviously has a few more issues than just Bush/Cheney.

[Skittles]

15. yeah

I can certainly understand his rage though

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. As someone once said, I don't approve of what he did, but I can

understand it.

Personally, I run, which is an amazing feat considering how sedentry I have been in the last twenty years.

[ixion]

3. It's too bad that people on our side react like this

I expect it from a freeper, they're insane. But I guess I have higher standards for progressives.

For example, I just say to myself when I see one of those stickers:

"Well, lookee there... a genuine FASCIST." :evilgrin:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

36. The other side does it more and nastier, but it doesn't make the media.

Wonder why. :eyes:

[ComerPerro]

5. Wonder what she did to piss him off

Says in the article that she flipped him off. Who knows. Maybe she cut him off or something then filpped him off when he honked...

I believe this story, since the guy seems to be admitting that he did this, but I think the woman is exaggerating and is probably lying about not having done anything to provoke the man.

Not that it excuses his actions in any way.

Its just that I know that Republicans love to play the victim and get off on feeling oppressed.
And I know that Bush supporters are arrogant motherfucking liars.

I'm guessing that its one of those situations where they were both wrong.

[dbt]

6. Cue sound effect of chickens coming home to roost.

Sure, what the guy did was wrong, but I can certainly see why he might suddenly snap after, say, a couple of decades of relentless Liberal-Bashing from the Hall$ of Government all the way up through 90 per cent of the popular culture.

It's a wonder that more of this does not happen!

[burn the bush]

25. I know how he can snap. During the South Bend Protests...

well, actually after it was over. One of the bushies offered us his W sticker that they had passed out. I said Yes I want it, do you have a whole role of them? He brought it over to me and I thanked him for it telling him that it would go into a urinal to be pissed upon.
We were still beign friendly and all.
At some point this guy says
"George Bush is your president too" Oh my GOd I lost it. I think I started screaming at him that that son of a bitch is not my president, would never be my president, and was not the legal president of these United States.
My husband says i was nose to nose with him at the time. I don't even remember. I just know when he said that shrub was my president, I totally lost it. I had to walk away.

[saracat]

9. Isn't this story a little fishy? If she was sooo scared

why was she able to react so calmly? And if she is a Dem , who voted for Bush, why does she have a bumper sticker as well? isn't that overkill? Ans why is this story given such prominence but the Democratic stories don't see print? I believe he chased her> I don't believe he tried to run her off the road or that she was in danger. Piffle. His Dad even said he was laid back. On the other hand, if he snapped who could blame him?

[ComerPerro]

12. I agree with you

I really think the woman is full of shit.

I said it above, but I'll repeat here:

It seems that even he admits he snapped and chased her, but I also find this story to be highly suspect.

I don't believe the part about him trying to run her off the road.

[Rockholm]

17. This story is such BULLSHIT.

When I see a "w04" sticker on a car, I usually pull up to see what piece of shit is driving the car. So far, I have only seen white trash driving beat up old cars with these stickers. In my neck of the woods, the 'rich" folk have Kerry/Edwards stickers.

[LibDemAlways]

33. How many drivers with anti-chimp

stickers have been subject to verbal abuse, middle fingers held aloft, having their cars keyed, being cut off, etc? Somehow these incidents never seem to make the "news."

[Kurovski]

10. A goofball.

What an embarrassment.

[xpat]

11. As a young driver, I hit a Lincoln that failed to yield.

Then I had the pleasure to see the "Goldwater for president" sticker on his bumper. It made my day.

[Kurovski]

14. That's not goofball, that's fate!

"failed to yield." That's priceless.

You didn't haul off and slug him or nothin', did you?

[xpat]

19. Nah, I just grinned. n/t

[BornLeft]

13. One of the rights core values

is to act like this man who tried to run the woman off the road. Yet when we are at our wits end and lash out we are bad people. We have lost and are going to keep losing because we can not or do not fight. All is lost America is gone and we will never get it back.

[Kurovski]

16. Oh, for gosh sake, it's just one iffy report.

"keep losing"? the right seems to do just fine with these kind of intimdating tactics. I don't think this is a case of why ANYONE "keeps losing." But what do I know?

And welcome to DU, BornLeft! We like to keep up the fight here, so jump right in! ALL is not lost.

[BornLeft]

32. I am afraid it is.

Really take a look around you and think logically. It will never be the America i grew up in. I am 43 and and went from a free society to a police state. we are screwed.

[ElectroPrincess]

22. This story reeks of something? ... not level. Isn't it usually the other

way around? That is, the a**hole in the Excursion or other tank-like SUV hogging the road with two yella ribbon magnets and W-04 oval sticker.

Gee, maybe we should tell these gas guzzling right wing nut-cases that the ole' W 04 oval stickers ... the prototype oval - was conceived in EUROPE? ROTFL I bet that would make many of their little minds explode before they finished talking in tongues. :evilgrin:

[RagingInMiami]

18. Those stickers annoy me to

Let's hope this inspires other freepers into removing their damn bush-cheney stickers

[Lisabtrucking]

20. This is bull shit, the woman got mad because he flashed his sign so,

she decided to teach him a lesson. She's a liar. She wont even talk to the media because she knows she's a liar.

[soup]

21. video report here

click on video story beneath the guy's picture:
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=12419

I'd sure like to hear the full 9 minute 911 call.

[DiverDave]

23. The more likely scenario:

she cut him off then when he honked she threw the bird...I'd be pissed too.
But I WOULDN'T have chased her.

I see the bush faithful everyday on the road, they are the most selfish, road hogging, impatient drivers out there.
I can almost get it right 100% of the time if I see a car charging thru traffic, tailgateing, flashing lights to get by...they got a * sticker on.

[notadmblnd]

31. I know, I've got some pretty angry bumperstickers on my car

and I've fully expected a freeper to go road rage on me. I don't know if it was because of my stickers or not but a couple of months ago some jerk in a white car cut me off and kept cutting me off everytime I tried to change lanes. We finally stopped at a light and I got out of my car and told him if he didn't leave me alone, he was going to die that day. It must have scared him (a perimenapausal woman pointing and screaming), cause he finally left me alone.

[flvegan]

24. Local radio here played part of the police tape

And she didn't sound as if she was in fear for her life. More angry than anything else. Of course, the lemmings in the * camp around here start calling into the morning show that played it, espousing their usual fire and brimstone bullshit about how all liberals should be castrated and set adrift on a garbage trawler.

I'm just glad the Tampa Tribune didn't pick the story up (that I saw). By the time those monkeys were done with it, he'd have been toting a shotgun, wearing warpaint and devouring a live fetus.

[Misunderestimator]

26. Now CNN just had a teaser... on next... about Road Rage showing a B/C

sticker.... nice food for more propaganda of the behavior of us "crazy" liberals. I LOVE how they latch onto this shit and ignore the male prostitute who's ass is right in front of their noses. Lovely.

[UncleSepp]

27. I have heard similar things in the area

One of my mom's friends had gone to see Bush - this was an elderly gentleman who was excited to see a President, period - and he put a sign he got there on his dashboard. He parked his car with the Bush sign on the dashboard outside of a store, and came back to find that a brick had been thrown through his windshield. The poor man was terrified.

[Straight Shooter]

28. That's just plain wrong.

Criminal behavior, intimidating tactics, from either side it's just plain wrong.

Problem is, we don't know if it's a bush-hater who did it, or someone who was hoping that people would believe a bush-hater did it. :shrug:

[UncleSepp]

34. We do know that a total jerk did it

It could have been one of those people who goes around looking for an excuse to be angry, with no more complicated motivation than that :-(

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fed_gov_eye]

30. Uh oh

I think Straight Shooter is on to us.

[Walt Starr]

35. Man what a feak! I'd call road rage like this over the top

but that would be too much of an understatement!

Seriously, laugh at the morans (sic) with Bush/Cheney stickers. Pity them, but don't get your blood pressure up over them!

This guy should seriously seek some preofessional help!

[Stirk]

37. Funny how this makes the news, but the other side does not.

I've seen this same thing happen myself- with my own eyes. Only the insanely angry asshole was pro-Bush, and they were harrassing someone they perceived to be a liberal.

I saw a man in a truck with pro-Bush stickers swerve at a woman in a car with pro-Kerry stickers and shout something about her being a traitor.

I saw two men in a car with a pro-Bush sticker jump out of their car at a stopped traffic light, and mark all over anti-war stickers on another car- then jump back into their own car before the light turned green.

I've seen a car of Bush fans (again, they had Bush stickers) tailgate and honk at a car with alot of liberal bumper stickers. This was on the freeway.

If I've seen at least 3 very clear cut cases of political road rage- all by pro-Bush idiots- then I'm either very lucky or there's a trend. But I've never seen that side reported. It's always the crazy liberal.