Manning Backers Heckle Obama

Politico reports:

During a morning fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel, a woman interrupted the president to say she had written a song for him. But the message she and her table mates had for the president wasn’t one of affection - they were there to protest the treatment of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused by the U.S. military of handing over thousands of confidential government documents to WikiLeaks.

“I paid my dues, where’s our change?” the group sang. “We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true. Look at the Republicans - what else can we do?”

It was another reminder to Obama, who is traveling through California and Nevada, that the Democratic base is restless. Obama admitted as much during a fundraiser on Wednesday, acknowledging that he’s frustrated progressives by striking deals with Republicans while going on an extended riff about how “everybody’s a political consultant” and his supporters say they “used to be so excited.”

The protest Thursday was a particularly stark, in-your-face confrontation for the tightly-controlled and largely affectionate world that a president inhabits, especially when going from one big-money fundraiser to another.

When the woman first stood up, Obama tried to get her to wait until later, but she persisted and the table of ten broke into a song that pointed out that each of them had spent $5,000 to attend the event.

Obama appeared to take the interruption in stride and at first he didn’t seem to realize it was a protest song. He looked to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and asked, “Nancy, did you do this?” Ms. Pelosi had a look on her face, as she stared at the singing group, that definitely said she did not, according to the pool report.

The group continued its song: “Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties, in what you seem content to call a free society, yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free, to burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy, but at another location in this country, alone in a 6x12 cell sits Bradley, 23 hours a day is night, the 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right, we paid our dues, where’s our change?”