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Martin Miller (“Is Campaigns’ Path to the Heart a Proper One?”, LAT [11 Aug ’00]), on Windy Smith’s cameo at the 2000 RNC:

“What the nation witnessed was the passing of the torch,” said JoAnn Simons, president of the Atlanta-based National Down Syndrome Congress. “Individuals with disabilities don’t necessarily need people to speak for them.”

More (“Tugging at Heartstrings is Political Fiddling,” LAT [14 Aug ’00]):

When Smith finished, the ovation for her rivalled the intensity of those given later for Dick Cheney and Bush. In the wake of Smith’s public talk, leading Down Syndrome advocates have also cheered her inclusion. The appearance culminates a decade of growing national exposure, largely over television, for people with Down Syndrome, who number 350,000 in the United States, advocates said.

Be careful what you wish for, as the old saw goes. That event seems to been the culmination (that is, end) of the growing exposure, and that exposure seems to have been limited to television—right when everyone switched to the net. Thus:

(Then again, anyone can write a Wikipedia entry.)

Dave Reynolds, (“Media Still Leaves Voices out,” Ragged Edge Online [May/June ’03]) spells out one way in which this exploitation operates:

The February 23, 2003 News Sentinel story highlighted the announcement that last fall President Bush had appointed Knoxville citizen Smith to the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation. The article also listed some of Smith’s accomplishments, including her local work to “get out the vote.” But something important was missing. The story did not include a single quote from Windy Smith. I reread the story from beginning to end. Nope. Lots of her mother’s words, but not one syllable from Windy. Windy Smith, who is an accomplished writer and public speaker, who has received numerous awards—including the Knoxville News Sentinel’s own Citizens Award for Outstanding Students—apparently was not even interviewed by her hometown newspaper.

I then did a quick search for “Down syndrome” in mainstream news articles I had collected the previous couple of weeks. [...] These six “soft news” stories featured people with Down syndrome, or “severe disabilities.” Despite the headlines, most highlighted the individual’s accomplishments and contributions to their communities. I went through each with a fine-toothed search utility. Not one story included a quote from their subjects. Most “hard news” items, those dealing with policy issues or crimes against people with disabilities, for example, rarely include the perspectives of those impacted by the events, either.

But it’s not just words: it’s images too. Assemblywoman Rose Marie Heck of the New Jersey General Assembly, 38th District, Bergen County, pwns Google: in an image-search for “Windy Smith” RNC, Heck gets the top 23 out of a paltry 38 hits, and none of them includes Ms. Smith.

For an actual image of Ms. Smith (and just 96×72px at that), we need to turn to Suck (see “Down with Republicans”).

A picture of Shrub and Smith is more elusive still. Tom Scocca (“Baby Elephant Walk: Diary of a Four-Day Infomercial,” City Paper, 31 July ’00) offered one up…

…along with this comment:

This is, simply put, the most grotesque piece of political theater I’ve ever seen. The Republicans are taking the unconditional approval everyone gives the mentally handicapped and using it as a shield in the business of politics. Who cares whether Bush is qualified to be president, whether he’s a tool of his father’s cronies, whether his missile-defense plan is a boondoggle and a fraud? Windy loves him! If he wins, she says, “it will be a happy time for America.” When she finishes, the crowd rises to its feet, screaming approval.

No words, hardly any images, and no records of achievement either:

Jake Tapper (“Bush Hits to the Center,” Salon [28 Feb ’01), recited the White House claim that Ms. Smith won a “Silver Medal for Gymnastics in the International Special Olympics in 1987” (31 July – 8 Aug, Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College, South Bend, IN), but it seems to be impossible to verify that on the net. It turns out that no systematic records of medals awarded at Special Olympics are available on the net or anywhere else.

One source discusses this in the context of a rumble between Special Olympics (“an international organization created to help people with intellectual disabilities develop self-confidence, social skills and a sense of personal accomplishment”) and the Paralympics (“elite sport events for athletes from different disability groups ... designed to emphasise the participants' athletic achievements, not their disability”) supporters: “The Special Olympics specifically does not keep medals tables on a national basis, they do award gold, silver and bronze medals to the winners in each event, with participant medals to everyone, a fairly common practice in international games.” A FAQ on the subject is here. (Another source states that “[t]he intellectual disabilities of the Special Olympians render these athletes indistinguishable from 90% of the general population.”)

Thus, a BBC Blog (“Tanni vs Phelps?”, Ouch! It’s a Disability Thing, 13 Aug ’08) notes:

I’ve been interested—but also rather irritated—by the coverage of US swimmer Michael Phelps’ achievements at the Beijing Olympics this week. [...] It’s impressive stuff, and the news coverage keeps telling us that he’s surpassed the nine golds previously won by names such as Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Larysa Latynina, making Phelps the greatest Olympian ever. Even Sir Steve Redgrave got a mention in some reports, despite the fact that he won a comparatively paltry five Olympic golds. Hmm. But isn’t there a name missing? What about Tanni Grey-Thompson? Tanni won 11 Paralympic golds during her illustrious career, yet her name doesn’t seem to have figured in these comparisons at all. Is this where the Paralympics stops being part of ‘the Olympic movement’, and becomes that ‘other’ Games that takes place after the main event, and is for (whisper it) disabled people?

The GOP likes to trot out the differently abled when it suit their fancy, but everyone is happy to hide them away again once the GOP has satisfied its needs.

(Apropos: Crossing over from the Paralympics to the Olympics was the silent subtext of Oscar Pistorius’s litigation against the IOC: see Gregor Wolbring, “Oscar Pistorius and the Future Nature of Olympic, Paralympic and Other Sports,” SCRIPTed—A Journal of Law, Technology and Society 139, 5:1 [’08].)