Steve Howard

[jenk]

As a followup to this post, here's a "local profile" in the Rocky Mountain News on Steve Howard. Who's Steve Howard? He's a former lobbyist who found out that telling Vice President Cheney, "Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible" can turn into an arrest for assault. He's suing a Secret Service agent "for illegal search and seizure and retaliation while exercising free speech, violations of the Fourth and First Amendments, respectively" (Vail Daily News).

Here's a Vail Daily News article from the arrest in June and another from a couple days later. The blog entries from Daily Copy Editor Mugs Scherer at the same newspaper are mildly amusing:

5:11 p.m.: Apparently, someone might have been arrested for something involving Dick Cheney up at Beaver Creek. The Secret Service just told our reporter she has to go through Washington to get any information. Opinion is split in the newsroom on whether the arrestee is in Gitmo, in a ditch with a face full of birdshot or, to quote Grandpa Simpson, “A little from Column A, a little from Column B.”

5:50 p.m.: Cheney update. A guy was detained, questioned and released for behaving oddly around the vice president. We have a story about it somewhere on this site. Can’t imagine why you would want to leave this wonderful blog, though.

6:07 p.m.: My services were just requested for writing a headline for the Cheney story. I’m pretty sure what I came up with is Pulitzer worthy: “Odd actions around Cheney prompt arrest.” That’s pronounced PULL-itzer, by the way, not PYOO-litzer. Always bothers me.

6:59 p.m.: After basically begging for my help with the Cheney headline, Zalaznick just bashed my headline-writing ability. I see how it is. They’re only nice to Mugs when they want a headline.

The kicker? It's not the first time.