Temple barred from bill signing; called "threat" to gov

   Roy Temple, a near-constant critic of Gov. Matt Blunt through his web site, today was barred from a bill signing because an aide to Blunt said he posed a physical  threat to the governor.

   Late Wednesday, Blunt's office was sticking by its call.

   Referring to Temple (left) as "the Carnahan hate blogger," Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson said Temple had once "attacked the governor for buying his son a Bible."

   "You really have to be concerned about the governor's safety and the mental state of people who post things on that site," Jackson said.

   Temple, a former chief of staff to Missouri Sen. Jean Carnahan and founder of firedupmissouri.com, said he went to the bill signing to witness Blunt's remarks on legislation requiring voters to present photo IDs when they cast ballots. He tells his side of the story here.

  He said he began to walk into the signing ceremony with other Statehouse reporters, only to be stopped by the governor's security detail shortly before stepping into the governor's office.

   Temple said the guard told him he had not been invited to the ceremony and was escorted out of the office and into the hallway, where he was detained for about 10 minutes before being told that charges would not be filed.

   He said he had no intentions to disrupt the event.

   "It's totally ludicrous for him (Jackson) to try to suggest that I represent a physical security threat to the governor," Temple said.

   "That's pretty aggressive, don't you think?"

   Jackson didn't think so.

   "He attempted to portray himself as a member of the press corps, which he obviously is not," Jackson said.

   Temple said his web site qualifies as a journalistic entity because its work is available to the public and is the online equivalent of a newspaper.

   Said Jackson: "I view these (bill signings)...as opportunities for professional journalists to ask questions. It's disrespectful for professional journalists to allow people who want to come in and disrupt the process for their own partisan gain.

   "I think it's disrespectful, and we're not going to have any of it."

   We haven't heard the end of this.

Posted by Steve Kraske 5:30 p.m.

Comments

[William Hughes]

More Republican rhetoric. They have an uncanny ability to turn any event into another episode of Springer.

[KC Cicero]

9-11! 9-11! 9-11!

Homeland Security!

Anybody who criticises the Boy Governor must be a terrorist! Osama Bin Temple?

All of this would be ludicrous execpt these petty minds actually run the government.

Texas has Delay, Missouri has the Blunts. Different cards, but the same deck. For the full Deck see www.symbolicconvergence.com.

[hate me]

Sounds like Temple is just a hateful person. I wouldn't want him in my office either.

[EducatedCitizen]

This is very typical of modern Republican administrations: no stomach for honest debate. They can dish it out but have no ability to take it. FiredUp has produced some of the best investigative journalism in the state over the past year. The fact that he has a partisan viewpoint is of no consequence. They let Fox News report on Democratic administrations don't they?

[Chad]

Temple is dangerous. Anyone who has read any of the lies he's posted about the Blunt's, Talent's and Ashcroft's knows this. He's been after the governor for over a year. I'm glad they stood up to him.

[babkc]

Conservatives have no problem calling liberals "traitors" which is a crime punishable by death, but the minute someone points out their fallibility, then they are deemed "dangerous". We are getting ever and ever closer to fascism and I am scared. When are they going to start saying that we "eat babies"?

[Dan W]

Yet another reason I'm proud to be independent.

[Jim S]

Chad, the right drugs and years of therapy might be able to help. You, not Temple.