Memo to the unnamed Oklahoma City police officer who stopped Chip Harrison for displaying a sign: "Abort" is not synonymous with "assassinate."

When the officer asked Harrison if he knew why he had been pulled over, Harrison said he did not.

"They said, 'It's because of the sign in your window,'" Harrison said.

"It's not meant to be a threat, it's a statement about abortion," Harrison said.

He said he disagrees with the president's position on abortion.

"I asked the officer, 'Do you know what abort means?'" Harrison said. "He said, 'Yeah, it means to kill.' I said, 'No, it means to remove or terminate.'"

Harrison said his sign was to be interpreted as saying something like: Remove Obama from office, not unborn babies from the womb.

The whole episode smacks of a Monty Python skit revolving around misinterpretations of common words, except that Chip Harrison has now been investigated by the Secret Service, has been told by the Oklahoma City police that he is "part of an investigation," and is no doubt on a dozen watch lists.

Oh, and he doesn't have his sign.  Give the man his sign back. Commenter Nate points out that, in fact, his sign was returned. Justice reigns in Oklahoma.

Update:  I see that in some of the weirder corners of the web, people are ranting as though Barack Obama himself ordered the man's sign confiscated.  Hogwash.  I agree with Patterico:

I can’t say I admire the sign, exactly — but seizing it is ridiculous.

But some people seem to be implying this is emblematic of the Obama regime. I hate to destroy a good outrage post with a question like this, but: what did Obama have to do with taking the guy’s sign?

This is a bad cop story, not a New World Order Seizing Our Signs story.

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