From the Arizona Daily Star – and I really don’t know what to make of this.

Maybe it’s something that happens all the time – and perhaps our friend Rick The News Guy and his wife, the CNN executive, would know.  It this a minor thing?

President Bush's re-election campaign insisted on knowing the race of an Arizona Daily Star journalist assigned to photograph Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Star refused to provide the information.

Cheney is scheduled to appear at a rally this afternoon at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

A rally organizer for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign asked Teri Hayt, the Star's managing editor, to disclose the journalist's race on Friday. After Hayt refused, the organizer called back and said the journalist probably would be allowed to photograph the vice president.

"It was such an outrageous request, I was personally insulted," Hayt said later.

Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the president's re-election campaign, said the information was needed for security purposes.

"All the information requested of staff, volunteers and participants for the event has been done so to ensure the safety of all those involved, including the vice president of the United States," he said.

Diaz repeated that answer when asked if it is the practice of the White House to ask for racial information or if the photographer, Mamta Popat, was singled out because of her name. He referred those questions to the U.S. Secret Service, which did not respond to a call from the Star Friday afternoon.

Hayt declined to speculate on whether Popat was racially profiled, but said she is deeply concerned.

"One has to wonder what they were going to do with that information," Hayt said. "Because she has Indian ancestry, were they going to deny her access? I don't know."

Journalists covering the president or vice president must undergo a background check and are required to provide their name, date of birth and Social Security number. The Star provided that information Thursday for Popat and this reporter.

"That's all anybody has been asked to provide," said Hayt, adding that this is the first time in her 26-year career that a journalist's race was made an issue.

Organizer Christine Walton asked for Popat's race in telephone conversations with two other Star editors before she spoke to Hayt. They also refused to provide the information. Walton told Hayt that Popat's race was necessary to allow the Secret Service to distinguish her from someone else who might have the same name.

From Ric Erickson in Paris (he publishes MetropoleParis) -

They're right to be careful.  The Star's Mamta Popat might be one of them foreign journalists who somehow slipped by the Migra watchdogs at LAX, by lying; saying she was not the same Mamta Popat, newspaper photographer, as the other Mamta Popat, Bollywood productrice.

Not so funny though.  What's Mamta Popat's age got to do with anything?  Haven't they read the prisoner of war rules?  Name, rank and serial number is all Geneva requires.  Doesn't even say anything about a photo on the ID badge.  Anybody know if the Secret Service can read photos?

- outpost in Paris, ric

PS - Dems party in Boston got good cover here.  Kerry's French cousin, an ex-environmental minister, was at show on VP pass but kept a low, low profile - no doubt hoping to avoid a late summer flood of Dems in Brittany.