http://macontelegraph.com/content/macon/2001/08/27/local/ETHREDGE0827.htm By Rob Peecher Telegraph Staff Writer EATONTON --- Jesse Ethredge doesn't care much for President Bush, and he doesn't hesitate to say so. In fact, if you're following the 57-year-old Eatonton man down the road, you'll quickly learn just exactly what he thinks of Bush. "Don't U blame me. Thief --- Liar --- Two Faced Murderer Geo W. Bush. Hell with Bush and all damn Republicans." Those are the words printed, in plastic stick-on letters, on the back of the camper on Ethredge's truck, which is also adorned with a cartoon child urinating on the word "Republicans." Those also are the words that earned Ethredge a visit from the U.S. Secret Service last week. "They came Tuesday, wanting to ask me what did I mean by that there," Ethredge said, pointing to the slogan on his truck. "They asked me a bunch of questions, like if he was to come into my driveway, what would I tell him. I said I'd tell him to get out as fast as he come in it. ... They wanted to see if I was a danger to him." Bush has been closer to Ethredge than one might expect. During the campaign, Bush made at least two visits to Reynolds Plantation on Lake Oconee in Greene County. Ethredge said he believes the visit from the Secret Service was initiated by a man who had come to his house the week before. Ethredge, who lives on Lake Sinclair, has a car with a for sale sign on it parked in his front yard. A few days before the Secret Service came to see him, Ethredge said a man stopped at the end of his driveway. "I come out to see what he wanted; I thought he wanted to buy the car. But then he started talking about the sign and asked me if I knew I could get in trouble with the Secret Service for that. I told him if that's all he was here for, he could leave the same way he came here," Ethredge said. "If I see him again, I'll give him a mouthful." Putnam County sheriff's detective Lee Wilson confirmed it was a call from someone who had seen Ethredge's truck that brought the Secret Service to Eatonton. "We got a call from somebody who had seen his truck and noticed a sign that (the caller said) says 'murder George Bush,' " Wilson said. "I called the Secret Service, and they sent an agent down, and we interviewed (Ethredge) as a matter of policy to see what his mind-set is and if he poses any threat to the president." Wilson said Ethredge cooperated during the interview. "Although he didn't have a lot of use for (Bush), he didn't have any intentions of causing him physical harm," Wilson said. "As far as (the sheriff's office) is concerned, it's a closed matter. I don't want to speak for the Secret Service, but based on my conversation with them, they'll document having contact with (Ethredge)." It was a similar anti-Bush (though a different Bush) slogan on the same camper shell that more than a decade ago got Ethredge much attention from the media and from officials at Robins Air Force Base, where he has worked as a civilian employee for 34 years. That sign --- "Read my lips hell with Geo. Bush" --- got Ethredge a ticket charging him with "provoking speech on a truck" when he drove it onto the base April 5, 1990. The ticket was dismissed since there is no statute against "provoking language on a truck," but in October 1991, Ethredge received a letter from Col. Robert Hail, then-deputy base commander at Robins. The letter instructed Ethredge not to come onto the base with "bumper stickers or other similar paraphernalia which would embarrass or disparage the Commander in Chief." Ethredge contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, and a First Amendment lawsuit naming Hail as the defendant ensued. A U.S. district judge ruled against Ethredge, saying the base did have the power to limit bumper sticker content. Ethredge appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the 11th Circuit initially ruled the case moot since Bush lost the election to Clinton. So, Ethredge says, he added a line about Bill Clinton "more or less to keep the case going." While he has no love for Republicans --- the first sign Ethredge had on a vehicle was about Ronald Reagan --- Ethredge said he didn't really have anything against Clinton. But he nonetheless added a slogan to his truck that read, "Hell with Clinton and Russian aid." The 11th Circuit then ruled against Ethredge, and the lawsuit ended there, said Gerry Weber, the ACLU attorney handling the case. "We stopped at the 11th Circuit level," Weber said. "Just within the context of a military base, people's free speech rights are as restricted or potentially more restricted than inmates in a jail." Weber said he was surprised to hear Ethredge had become, if only briefly, the subject of a Secret Service probe. After hearing the content of the new slogan, Weber said, "That doesn't sound like it warrants a Secret Service investigation." Weber also said a state statute outlawing obscene or lewd messages on bumper stickers was struck down by the state Supreme Court, so Bush supporters wishing to silence Ethredge have no recourse there. Ethredge --- who also is well known at the Putnam County Tax Commissioner's Office, where he pays his property taxes in pennies --- has not worked at Robins since 1998 when he left on a workers' compensation claim after a knee injury. He plans to retire next month.