Flash Mob Interrupts President Obama's Fundraiser

Protestors spend more than $100,000 to sing their support for Bradley Manning
By: Gerry Shih, Katharine Mieszkowski

Updated April 21, 2011 at 2:22 p.m. with video

A flash mob of 10 activists protesting the government's treatment of Private Bradley Manning serenaded President Obama at a private fundraiser at the posh St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco Thursday morning. 

The president was in the middle of a speech talking about "how inspired he was by the creativity of the organizers supporting him in the 2008 election," said Emma Cape, 24, one of the protesters present, when Naomi Pitcairn, leader of the Bay Area-based Fresh Juice Party, stood up and offered to sing the president a song. 

While the president suggested that the group wait, 10 of the 20 protesters in the room, burst into a song entitled "Where is Our Change?" while waving signs that said "Free Bradley Manning" and "Mr President, Why Not Let UN and Amnesty Visit Bradley."

Here's video of the serenade:

Manning is the Army intelligence analyst accused of passing secret government documents to WikiLeaks. On Wednesday, he was moved to a medium security facility in Leavenworth, Kan., from the Marine brig in Quantico, Va., where he was reportedly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.  

Pitcairn paid for $76,000 of the $105,000 activists spent on tickets to the fundraiser.  After several minutes of song, the Secret Service escorted her from the event, questioned and then released her. Jeff Patterson, project director of Courage to Resist, an activist group that took part in the protest, said that Pitcairn "describes herself as a trust-fund brat/artist." 

The protesters repeatedly stressed that they support Obama, but disagree with his handling of Manning's case. 

"I think people were dumbfounded," said Cape of her fellow guests at the breakfast, who included Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and MC Hammer. 

After the breakfast concluded, Logan Price, a 27-year-old activist, said he approached the president and debated Manning's detention for “several minutes,” because Obama was “being sarcastic” about the group’s singing.

“I told him that I was disappointed in him not saying anything about Bradley Manning,” Price said. “He’s the most important whistleblower of my time, and Obama should not prosecute whistleblowers. Obama is prosecuting more whistleblowers than any president in history.”

According to Price, the president listened to his argument and the two exchanged their views on Manning’s detention and the effect of the WikiLeaks disclosures on politics in the Arab World.

“Obama said that Daniel Ellsberg is not Bradley Manning,” Price said, “because the [WikiLeak] files are risking the well-being of servicemembers and contacts abroad and he can’t run diplomacy on open-source.” 

Price said the exchange, as well as video of the song, would be uploaded to the Internet today.

Price said Obama took the entire episode “in stride” but seemed to duck the issue.

“He’s a politician, that’s what he does,” Price said. “I think by not responding directly to the song, the chants, the flash mob, but by playing it off as a joke, he was able to avoid touching the subject.”