JEB MAY NOT LEARN ON THE ISSUE, BUT DOES LEARN HOW TO HANDLE PROTESTERS

The University of Central Florida was host Monday to a symposium of four former and one current Florida governor, and when Jeb Bush came to the podium for his address, around 20 students protesting military research and development on their campus stood and turned their backs to the chief executive.

Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell remembers the last time something like this happened, six years ago when African-American legislators held a sit-in at the governor's office to protest a proposal to end affirmative action in Florida's university system. At that time, Bush had armed guards physically remove reporters who were covering the story.

This time, the governor kept his wits about him. Palm Beach Post reporter Brian E. Crowley writes in the newspapers' new political blog Q:

As he took the podium, Bush seeing the signs, said, “let me see the protest.”

Wearing white shirts scrawled with, “Students Not Soldiers,” the students stood quietly with their backs to Bush.

When one of the protesters said the group belong to SDS - Students for Democratic Society - Bush asked, “Is that like the 60”s SDS? Wow!”

Unlike the radical SDS of the Vietnam War-era, the new SDS was polite, asked a few questions about military research on campus - Bush supports it - and then quietly left.

“They don’t look like the SDS I remember,” Bush said later. “I don’t think that they are their daddy’s SDS.”