Protesters interrupted President Obama’s remarks at a fundraiser on Thursday by singing a song urging the release of Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence specialist accused of leaking top secret documents to the website Wikileaks.
Obama was in the middle of his stump speech at St. Regis Hotel in San Franciso when a woman stood and told the president that she wrote him a song. When Obama asked the woman to wait until later, she persisted and broke out in song with the 10 people seated at her table.
Obama looked to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was with him at the event, and asked: Nancy, did you do this?
The song protested the treatment of Manning, and the singers pointed out that they had just donated $5,000 to Obama’s campaign as they passed around signs that said “Free Bradley Manning.” Then the woman tore off her white suit jacket and revealed a t-shirt that read “Free Bradley Manning.”
“We paid our dues. Where’s our change?” the group sang, according to a pool reporter covering the event.
The Secret Service and White House staff escorted the woman out of the room and two others left on their own.
“That was a nice song,” Obama commented. “Now, where was I?”
Here are the song lyrics, as provided by pool reporter Carol Lee of the Wall Street Journal:
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where’s our change?
We’ll vote for you in 2012, yes that’s true
Look at the Republicans – what else can we do
Even though we don’t know if we’ll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it’s true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people’s holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6×12 cell sits Bradley
Twenty-three hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain’t right
We paid our dues, where’s our change?
