I don’t know who watches the Today Show. I don’t. But they were in Rome so a small group of us went down to mug for the camera a little bit and perhaps steal a few Emmy moments from the short and perky Katie Couric. I made a sign that I think got some play. It read “Ciao Canada!” Buuuut inside it was another sign, twice as large that read “IMPEACH BUSH” I went down to Piazza Navona to mingle with the crowds of American college students and the feel-good programming they had going on. But I went down with
US Citizens(andothers)forpeace&justice to enjoy the proceedings but also throw down a little political muckraking. And muckrake we did. During the segment where Katie Couric and her friend try some strange flavoured ice cream a chant comes up from a group of us in the crowd that suggests a good idea would be to “STOP STOP STOP THE WAR!” After a couple of rounds of unscheduled audio feed from Rome we were brusquely hustled away from the ice cream zone and tended to by a hysterical producer. She was blond, in her early thirties, and didn’t, I think, devote much brain time to the justness or otherwise of American military involvement in Iraq. 
Look how unhappy she is. She desperately wanted us to know that this isn’t the time or place for a protest message. An Italian vendor in the piazza came over to chime in,in good but accented English, that it was.
At any rate some of our group was prepared to argue quite strenuously with her. I just tried to explain to her that it was a good segment that made good unexpected entertainment, her show wasn’t ruined, and, above all, it’s an important and timely message to get out, and that she’d been a good sport. We got our message on the air and Katie Couric was forced to comment that “free speech is alive and well here.”
