Posted on 01/21/2005 2:39:01 AM PST by conservative in nyc
They were pelted with snowballs, doused with pepper spray. They were outnumbered by police and by Bush loyalists, drowned out for the most part by the fanfare of the nation's 55th inauguration.
The thousands of protesters who took to the streets to oppose President Bush's second swearing-in did succeed on at least one score: No one who came to Washington to celebrate the inauguration yesterday left without encountering them.
The biggest disruption apparently occurred late last night, far from the center of inaugural action, in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Northwest Washington. Shortly before midnight, police clad in riot gear arrested 65 people they described as anarchists for allegedly parading without a permit after the encircled A symbol of the anarchist movement was spray-painted on buildings.
--Snip---
Police reported 14 arrests for various offenses, most of them related to the protests. But about two dozen activists who wanted to be arrested were left lying on the cold asphalt near Lafayette Square for three hours before abandoning their "die-in."
"I think [the police] had a no-arrest strategy because of all the bad publicity they've had in the last few years and the fact that they are facing a lot of lawsuits," said Mark L. Goldstone, a veteran protest lawyer.
---Snip---
A few blocks down the parade route, other demonstrators, these of a conservative mind, rallied in support of the president in an event organized by the D.C. chapter of Free Republic, a banner reading "God Bless W And Our Troops" attached to the barricades.
But many didn't need a banner to show their support for the president or frustration with protesters. "You don't like our country!" one person seated on the West Front shouted to the protesters, who included a group from Code Pink: Women for Peace, who disrupted Bush's speech.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Catching a few moments of C-Span2 was a treat. I saw a woman with children screaming nasty anti Bush slogans. Her pretty little girl was saying the same thing.
That woman was not my daughter nor was the child my grandchild.:-)
PS: My daughter wanted to wear her GWB tee shirt to the polls. I said that was electioneering and she couldn't do that.:-)
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