Protesters don't celebrate Bush inauguration
Thursday, January 20, 2005
By: Jim Puzzanghera Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - They were the other Americans who flocked to the nation's capital for Inauguration Day, the protesters who came by the thousands from as far away as the Bay Area to mourn, not celebrate, the start of four more years of President Bush

"I Can't Take 4 More Minutes," read the handmade banner held aloft by Jasper Webb, 30, an automotive instructor from Richmond, Va., and Harriet Rowan, 16, a high school junior from Washington.

The two didn't know each other before Thursday afternoon. But just as with the other protesters, they were united by anger at Bush for the war in Iraq, and hoped the president would see the sign - black paint on a six-foot strip of brown paper - as he passed by their location on Pennsylvania Avenue during the inauguration parade.

"I don't believe Bush is a good president," Rowan said, "and we should have the right to tell people what we think."

It wasn't easy.

Most of the parade route from the U.S. Capitol Building to the White House was lined with invitation-only bleachers, and the intense security of the first post-Sept. 11 inauguration kept many protesters blocks away.

The anti-war ANSWER Coalition had the foresight to apply more than a year ago for a permit to hold a rally on the parade route. It drew an estimated 10,000 people right along the double row of steel barricades that separated the crowds from the parade.

"Our focus is not to turn our back on Bush, but to be in his face as visibly as we can," said Bill Hackwell, 56, a photographer from San Francisco. He was joined by Nati Carrera, 27, a data-entry worker from El Cerrito in the East Bay, who also opposes the Iraq war.

"It's kind of important to start things off right," he said of Bush's second term. "We just have to keep on showing we're still opposed to the policy even if the administration did stay the same."

There were scattered reports of police clashes with protesters. Medea Benjamin, 51, of San Francisco, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, and five other women were taken into custody after they infiltrated a VIP section and stood on their chairs to protest during Bush's address, the group said. The women shouted, "Bring the troops home!" and unfurled anti-war banners before police hauled them away. Four were released, but Benjamin and Diane Wilson, 56, were being held by police Thursday night.

Crowds trying to get to the ANSWER rally overwhelmed the nearest entrances to the highly secured parade zone, forcing some protesters to search for other locations. They found one at the corner of 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, two blocks from the White House, where a gap between the bleachers provided about 50-feet of frontage along the parade route.

They crowded in close, holding their anti-Bush signs - "Worst President Ever"; "Four More Years equals Four More Wars"; "Murderer" - and displaying all manner of anti-Bush paraphernalia, such as the scrawled messages "I Have No President" pinned to the backs of their jackets.

"`God Forgive America,' that's a big seller," said Leni Fried of Cummington, Mass., an artist who made dozens of buttons and drove to Washington with her nephew to sell them for $1, $2 and $3 a piece.

By midday, Fried had already sold all her "Jesus Loves You, Bush Doesn't" buttons, displayed with the others on a long apron she wore as she worked the crowds.

Around mid-afternoon opponents swelled to about 500 at 13th and Pennsylvania as the head of the parade approached and helicopters circled overhead. Awaiting the commander-in-chief's new Cadillac limousine in the 35-degree weather, they broke into chants of "Not our president" and "Bush is a terrorist." Police in riot gear moved into place in front of the crowd before Bush arrived.

When Bush drove past, protesters exploded into boos, shooting their hands in the air - either thumbs down or middle fingers up. The noise was countered by Bush supporters in the bleachers cheering wildly as they waved at the president, a microcosm of a politically divided nation.

"Most of the noise was coming from us, `Four more years! Four more years!'" said Calvin Cartwright, 59, a medical consultant from Atlanta who in the bleachers near the protesters. They didn't bother him, he said.

"It's America. They can disagree," Cartwright said. "Protest is freedom."

For Kate Kennon, 43, a mother of seven and writer from Yonkers, N.Y., the dissenting was more than an expression of freedom - it was cathartic after the disappointment of Bush's re-election in November.

"You see all these people protesting and you don't think you're going crazy," said Kennon, a CodePink member. "It's been the best day since October."