Sanity Prevails: 'GETOSAMA' License Plate Approved

You have to figure it's some bureaucratic douchebags who held this one up.

Arno Herwerth, the Hauppauge man who has been battling the Department of Motor Vehicles over its denial of his request for license plates that read "GETOSAMA," will have his plates and registration by Christmas.

"It was a nice Christmas present," he said Tuesday.

The retired New York City police officer ordered the vanity plates in 2007 to register his dismay at the government's inability to capture Osama bin Laden, the person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Herwerth got the plates, but the Department of Motor Vehicles quickly ordered them returned, citing its policy against "obscene or objectionable" plates.

'Get Osama' Plates Deemed Offensive

From the state that wants to give driver's licenses to illegals, no less.

Only in New York.

DMV Stifles L.I. Man's 'Get Osama' Campaign

There's a $25 million reward out for his capture, so it's no secret the United States Government wants to get Osama Bin Laden. But when a Long Island man wanted to express that thought on his license plate, he got more than he bargained for.

He's the most wanted man in the world, or as President Bush once put it, "he's wanted dead or alive."

Just like the President, Arno Herwerth of Hauppauge, Long Island, wants to get "Osama" also, and he's making it known.

Herwerth sports a "Kill Bin Laden" t-shirt, and one look at his boldly adorned vehicle will tell you his campaign against the 9/11 mastermind is at the forefront of his patriotic-led life.

"I feel the man's a mass murderer. He should be killed. He should be dead," Herwerth told CBS 2.

So when Arno, a retired NYPD sergeant, ordered personalized "Get Osama" license plates from the DMV, he said he thought he was being patriotic.

"It's the only way to deal with him. He's killed thousands of people. The man is akin to Adolph Hitler," said Herwerth.

But now he told CBS 2, the DMV has put the brakes on his plates, claiming they are offensive.

No wonder people hate the DMV.

In a letter addressed to Herwerth, the DMV said they "prohibit the issuance of any license plate combination that is, 'in the discretion of the commissioner, obscene, lewd, lascivious, derogatory to a particular ethnic group or patently offensive."

Arno points out however, there is a little something called "free speech" in the country he so adamantly believes he is supporting.