If you thought yesterday’s New York Times puff piece on Cindy Sheehan was ridiculous, wait until you read today’s, by Times hack Shadi Rahimi: An Antiwar Speech in Union Square Is Stopped by Police Citing Paperwork Rules. (Hat tip: Mediacrity.)

The “paperwork” to which the Times refers so dismissively: the “anti-war” crew failed to get a permit to use audio equipment, yet set it up and used it anyway—knowing that they would be arrested in a typically dishonest staged event.

An antiwar speech by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, was cut short yesterday after the organizer of the event was arrested and police officers confiscated his audio equipment.

The claps and cheers that had greeted Ms. Sheehan’s arrival at the rally in Union Square quickly turned to furious chants of “Let her speak!” as officers ushered away the organizer, Paul Zulkowitz, who the police said lacked audio permits for the event.

Angry activists followed officers as they led Mr. Zulkowitz away, waving their fists and shouting, “Shame, shame, shame.” Ms. Sheehan, who was visiting New York on the last leg of a bus tour across the country, was nearing the end of her speech when the police officers arrested Mr. Zulkowitz. She was whisked to a car by two supporters just before the police officers seized the microphone. Mr. Zulkowitz was arrested because he did not have a permit, said the commanding officer of the 13th Precinct, Inspector Michael J. McEnroy.

Detective Kevin Czartoryski said Mr. Zulkowitz was charged with unauthorized use of a sound device and disorderly conduct, and was released after being given a court summons. Detective Czartoryski said the police had taken the “appropriate action” in response to a lawbreaker.

But many people attending the event, dozens of whom yelled accusations into the faces of the more than 20 police officers who blocked them from following Mr. Zulkowitz, interpreted the arrest as a demonstration of citywide disdain for free speech, referring to last year’s arrests of protesters at the Republican National Convention.

“This is what’s been happening for the last couple of years,” said Daniel Starling, the co-chairman of the Green Party chapter in Manhattan, who attended the event yesterday. “Every time we try to hold a demonstration, they arrest us.”

How eager is the Times to whitewash Sheehan’s lunacy and promote her far-left cause?

This eager:

Many New Yorkers said yesterday that Ms. Sheehan gave them back hope that was lost when war was declared on Iraq.

Reported as fact, by the left’s largest propaganda organ.

UPDATE at 9/20/05 11:31:35 am:

As quoted above, the Times reported:

Angry activists followed officers as they led Mr. Zulkowitz away, waving their fists and shouting, “Shame, shame, shame.”

Right.

Turns out they were shouting a few other things too, but Shadi Rahimi edited that part out. The New York Sun didn’t: Anti-War Protesters Call Police ‘Stalinists’. (Hat tip: LawHawk.)

The arrest of an organizer of an anti-war gathering yesterday at Union Square that featured Cindy Sheehan provoked a furious reaction from protesters, who pressed up against police officers and called them “pigs,” “fascists,” and “Stalinists.”