George W. Bush's motorcade lurched through the largest inaugural protests since Richard Nixon's era, enduring thousands of protesters who hurled insults at the newly installed president. Some threw bottles, tomatoes and an egg and one demonstrator burned an American flag atop a lamppost.
Police ordered the motorcade to slow in anticipation of some protests -- at one point stopping it for five minutes -- and then sped it through others.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A couple of protesters threw bottles and tomatoes before the presidential limousine arrived, and one hurled an egg that landed near the motorcade, the Secret Service said.
PHOTO: AFP
But the protesters managed little else to interrupt the festivities in the face of a massive show of 7,000 police officers. As the day grew darker and colder, authorities had arrested only eight people and activists began to disperse, said Terrance Gainer, executive assistant chief of police. One of them was charged with assault with a deadly weapon after slashing tires and trying to assault an officer, Gainer said.
"Hail to the Thief," read one sign along the parade route questioning the legitimacy of Bush's election win in Florida. Other protesters sported buttons declaring, "illegitimate Son of a Bush."
"If he had won clearly, I wouldn't have troubled to come here," said Mack Wilder, a construction worker from Greensboro, North Carolina, who joined over 100 others from the state for a five-hour bus journey through fog and rain.
Some said the deeply conservative tinge of Bush's Cabinet drove them into the streets. "By having people like [John] Ashcroft nominated, he is definitely not being a healer, which is what he promised to be," said Barbara Katz.
There were also inaugural day protests around the country. Some of the largest were in California, where demonstrators outside the Capitol sang "George Bush Ain't My President." Protesters in Seattle gathered around a flower-covered cardboard coffin labeled "Ballot Box." There were also demonstrations in Florida, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont.
Bush remained in his limousine for most of the traditional parade route up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House.
The new president finally exited for a brief walk only after he reached a secure zone near the White House filled with inauguration ticketholders and no protesters.
The protests were the largest since those during Nixon's 1973 inauguration at the height of the Vietnam war. Those protests drew about 60,000; organizers of the Bush protests anticipated 20,000.
Though protesters had many disparate causes, most said they were motivated by the Florida election controversy.
Bob Rogers, one of the organizers of the "Voter March," said the fact that Bush captured the White House even though Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 guaranteed busloads of demonstrators.
"These are moderate, working people, motivated by anger, embarrassment, that kind of sentiment," he said. "They're wondering, `We put a man on the moon, why can't we count the vote?'"
On the Capitol steps where he was sworn in, Bush exchanged smiles and pleasantries with Al Gore -- a civility that at times extended into the streets. Pro- and anti-Bush protesters joked with each other, and jostled each other on crowded subway trains.
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
‘MISGUIDED EDICT’: Two US representatives warned that Somalia’s passport move could result in severe retaliatory consequences and urged it to reverse its decision Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has ordered that a special project be launched to counter China’s “legal warfare” distorting UN Resolution 2758, a foreign affairs official said yesterday. Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority on Wednesday cited UN Resolution 2758 and Mogadishu’s compliance with the “one China” principle as it banned people from entering or transiting in the African nation using Taiwanese passports or other Taiwanese travel documents. The International Air Transport Association’s system shows that Taiwanese passport holders cannot enter Somalia or transit there. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) protested the move and warned Taiwanese against traveling to Somalia or Somaliland
SECURITY: Grassroots civil servants would only need to disclose their travel, while those who have access to classified information would be subject to stricter regulations The government is considering requiring legislators and elected officials to obtain prior approval before traveling to China to prevent Chinese infiltration, an official familiar with national security said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) in March announced 17 measures to counter China’s growing infiltration efforts, including requiring all civil servants to make trips to China more transparent so they can be held publicly accountable. The official said that the government is considering amending the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) to require all civil servants to follow strict regulations before traveling to China.
RSS