[Mayor] Rocky invited Sheehan to Salt Lake

WASHINGTON — Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson invited anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to join speakers at a rally when President Bush speaks to the American Legion Convention.

Anderson invited Sheehan via e-mail a few days ago, her spokeswoman Tiffany Burns said, and "she jumped at the chance to be there."

Bush, along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is expected to be at the American Legion convention on Aug. 30, which may draw about 14,500 attendees.

Sheehan, who has become a high-profile spokeswoman for the anti-war movement since her son, Army Spc. Casey, was killed in Iraq in 2004, was unable to attend a similar rally in Utah last summer, when President Bush addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. She was in the midst of her famous "Camp Casey" vigil outside Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch.

Anderson encouraged attendance and spoke at last year's rally, which irritated many veterans and some local political leaders.

But Sheehan praised Salt Lake's mayor in an interview Wednesday on KSL Radio's Doug Wright show.

"He is an amazingly progressive and outspoken critic of the war and the president's policies," she said.

"We couldn't make it, so this year we're coming and we're going to do a big march and a rally," Sheehan said.

Greg Felice, one of the rally organizers, said the group Utah Voices is made up of people of all political ideologies who want to get the message out that the war in Iraq is leading the country in the wrong direction and not making the nation any safer.

He said Sheehan and Anderson are just two of the speakers who will represent the group's ideas. The group objects to the administration's environmental, energy, financial and other polices.

"It's a broad set of concerns," Felice said. "People can show respect and exercise their First Amendment rights."

He added that he and other attendees are choosing to wear "Sunday best" attire to the rally "out of respect for our message."

Anderson would not comment on the rally or Sheehan's participation. The mayor and his spokesman, Patrick Thronson, have declined the newspaper's requests for comment for the past 55 days.

Terry Schow, vice president of the Utah American Legion Convention Corporation, said he was "disappointed" that the mayor would encourage participation by Sheehan or anyone else at the rally.

"I wish our good mayor would use another forum," Schow said. "He is capitalizing on the efforts of many, many people. I wish he would be a statesman."

Schow said that when Bush visits Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley, a Democrat, does not hold or participate in protests.

"When the mayor does this type of thing, it makes our job increasingly difficult," Schow said, referring to the time it takes a host city to convince an organization like the American Legion to bring a convention to town. Schow said the convention will bring about $600,000 to the state, so Anderson's actions have a "fiscal impact" if future organizers opt not to consider Salt Lake as a host city.

There are conflicting reports that Anderson's past and present protests have discouraged legionnaires from attending this year's convention. Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Carroon will welcome the convention at the Salt Palace, which is owned by the county.

Schow said and the other convention attendees are not going to let the planned rally bother them.

"We have a convention to put on and we intend to go about doing just that," Schow said.

The White House will not confirm Bush's trip to Utah and does not release travel schedules until a week before, according to the press office.

The President is expected to pay a courtesy visit to the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is also scheduled to speak at a fund-raiser for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is running for re-election. The $500-a-plate lunch will take place at noon on Aug. 31, according to Hatch campaign manager Dave Hansen.

Your assumption about SLC propper is wrong. It has plenty of nutbags. That and many Repubs chose to sit home and sulk during the last election (essentially voting for the guy). Oh also, the media are big supporter as well (this is the official SL Trib editorial):

Rocky & Bushwinkle: Anderson can be both host and protester-in-chief

We don't know what Emily Post would have said about Rocky Anderson's duty as host to President Bush later this month. We suspect that the late doyenne of etiquette would have admonished Salt Lake City's mayor to button his lip and play his ceremonial role graciously, not lead a protest of the president's policies.

But, frankly, we can't see why Anderson cannot do both - play host and protester-in-chief, just not at the same time.

He could welcome the president to Salt Lake City, where Bush will address the American Legion convention. Then Anderson could rocket off to join the protest at Washington Square. That's pretty much what he did at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention a year ago.

However, the guys at the American Legion have pre-empted that scenario by disinviting the mayor to give the community welcome at their convention. Instead, they have invited Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon to do the honors.

In one way, this is the best outcome. It relieves Mayor Anderson of his hosting duties, which both he and the president may have found distasteful under the circumstances, and leaves Rocky free to vent his spleen at the protest. We would guess that Emily Post would applaud any compromise that avoided an embarrassing scene.

Still, we don't think Mayor Anderson's important duty to be a good host necessarily means that he must muzzle his political views. Rather, it's a matter of what ceremonial role the mayor is playing at a given time, if any.

That said, deference to a guest, even when he is the president of the United States, does not require deference, in another venue, to the man's policies, particularly when they have been as disastrous as Bush's in Iraq. On that score, there has been entirely too much deference in the United States lately.

The hurly-burly of ideas is the essence of democratic government, and it can cut both ways. Thirty years ago, some American Legion conventioneers booed Jimmy Carter, then the Democratic presidential nominee, when he proposed a blanket pardon for draft evaders from the Vietnam era. Carter is an Annapolis graduate and veteran. He was a guest at the convention. But some vets didn't like his policy, and they let him know it.

That was their right, even their patriotic duty. Just as it is Rocky Anderson's.

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