http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04193/344787.stmCamp's opening gets tangled up in campaign stop
They may not have known it, but 60 children from some of Pittsburgh's poorest neighborhoods were in the thick of presidential politics for the past three days.
It all began at 4 p.m. Thursday with an urgent phone call. The Air Force's 911th Airlift Wing in Moon had decided the children could not begin their summer camp at the base tomorrow morning, as had been planned for five months.
Vice President Dick Cheney would be arriving then on Air Force Two to campaign in Pittsburgh. His presence would mean the children, part of the federally funded Weed & Seed program, had to find a different place to launch their camp.
Lt. Cathleen Snow, who coordinates press coverage at the base for landings such as Cheney's, said she decided that the expected crush of media and security personnel would strain the base staff. It would have been impossible, she said, to accommodate the children's camp and the vice president at the same time.
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the rest of the article tells how Weed & Seed, Kerry's group, the GOP went round and round on a new place - but Weed & Seed found a place and stuck to it saying:
"Our primary concern was the children, and that they not be jerked around," Farley said.
Chatman said he was especially annoyed by the alternate plans to remove and then return children to the base so they could be part of a political opportunity.
"We weren't going to be part of the jockeying they're doing," he said.
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Lt. Snow made a bad decision to pick snake Cheney over the kids.