FORMER PRESIDENT H.W. BUSH HECKLED

I think it's deplorable what happened to former president George H.W. Bush at a Houston, Texas pizza restaurant where a man came up to him and began to heckle him, shouting false accusations and profanities. Luckily the president's secret service protection was in tow and they were able to send the heckler on his merry way.

Not that we don't sometimes disagree with our elected officials, including our presidents. But as anything goes in this world, if we want to get our point across, we have to do it respectfully and we simply cannot engage in the use of outright lies to support in favor of our arguments. This is not to say that had the man approached the former president in an intelligent way the president may have sat with him, chatted, and maybe even offered up a piece of pizza to the guy. But what the heckler did only served to make him look like a fool. It invalidated any case he may have had.

My concern over this incident calls me to question, beyond this, whether we may need to have another look at the law that went into effect in 1994 that limits secret service protection for former presidents elected after January 1, 1997 to just 10 years following the end of their terms. I examine it in more detail in my hub, "Bush Heckled At A Restaurant Signals Time to Revisit 1994 Law."