Dress Code Strictly Enforced

I'll admit it. I can be kinda snooty sometimes. If I'd received an invitation to the SOTU address, I wouldn't be caught dead in a t-shirt - no matter what my cause. But, apparently even a Republican Congressman's wife was also removed (Cindy Sheehan was kicked out and arrested) from the chamber for "protesting" because she had on a "support the troops" t-shirt. I wouldn't have allowed her to enter in the first place. She wasn't properly dressed!

Beverly Young, wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Indian Shores] said she was sitting in the gallery's front row, about six seats from first lady Laura Bush, when she was approached by someone from the Capitol Police or sergeant-at-arms office who told her she needed to leave the gallery.

She reluctantly agreed but argued with several officers in the hallway outside the House chamber.

'They said I was protesting,' she said in a telephone interview late Tuesday. 'I said, 'Read my shirt, it is not a protest.' They said, 'We consider that a protest.' I said, 'Then you are an idiot.''

She said she was so angry that 'I got real colorful with them.'

…Young, 50, said her shirt was not a protest but a message of support for U.S. soldiers and Marines fighting for their country. She often wears the T-shirts when visiting her husband at the Capitol and during her visits to see the wounded at military hospitals.

…Young's husband, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee on defense, was unaware she was removed until after the speech. He said he was furious about the incident.

'I just called for the chief of police and asked him to get his little tail over here,' Rep. Young said late Tuesday. 'This is not acceptable.'

Beverly Young said, 'Wait until the president finds out.'