Inauguration protesters make voices heard

WASHINGTON -- As President Bush was taking the oath of office at noon Thursday, Amy Caudill, 24, was marching down 16th Street toward the White House, carrying the front end of a mock coffin draped with an American flag and hoping to send the message that many loyal Americans are adamantly opposed to Bush and the war in Iraq.

"There are a lot of people who are proud, frustrated and patriotic at the same time," said Caudill, a student at the State University of New York in Albany, who was one thousands of anti-war protesters who rallied and marched and lined the route of the inaugural parade to voice their opposition to Bush and the war.

At demonstrations scattered around the city, along long stretches of the parade route and even in downtown subway stations, protesters often seemed more prevalent than Bush supporters. And they appeared to have achieved their goal of making their presence known both to the president, who has rarely come close to protesters in four years in office, and to the American public.

They shouted chants of "Bring Them Home!" "Liar!" and "Peace Now!" and carried homemade signs with slogans like "Look, the Emperor Has No Clothes," "He's Not My President," "Who Made Torture an American Value?" and "Yeehaw Is Not a Foreign Policy."

Most of the demonstrators were peaceful, but police did use tear gas and water cannons to quell unruly protesters who were stuck outside security checkpoints trying to reach to the inaugural parade route.

The U.S. Park Police arrested four women for crossing police lines along the parade route and disrobing as a way of protesting against wearing furs, according to U.S. Park Police Sgt. Scott Fear.

Washington police arrested three people, two for assaulting police officers and another for setting a bonfire, said officer Quintin Peterson .

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the Code Pink anti-war group, and two other protesters were being held overnight in jail after they unfurled a banner that said "Out of Iraq" and chanted "Bring home the troops" while in a VIP section along the parade route, according to June Brashares, who works with Benjamin at Global Exchange, a human rights organization in San Francisco.

Some Bush supporters were furious that the demonstrators were trying to spoil the patriotic pageant. But many others were happy to share sidewalks and subways with people who were chanting anti-war and anti-Bush slogans, even as the president's limousine passed by.

"I think this is what makes the country great. They have as much right to be here as we do," said Laura Flaherty, 45, a Bush supporter and high school social studies teacher from Columbus, Ohio, who brought 40 students to the Inauguration.

The protesters came from all across the United States. They included a Jamaican immigrant from Brooklyn whose grandson is fighting in Iraq, a 46-year-old lawyer from Sacramento who called the president "inept," and a 38-year-old woman from Virginia Beach who was dressed up as Jesus.

"Jesus would be opposed to this war and most of what this administration stands for," said Tara White, a graduate student at Old Dominion University, who wore a crown of thorns and a white robe.

White joined a hodgepodge of several thousand protesters who gathered at Malcolm X Park and then marched about two miles down 16th Street, stopping just a few blocks short of the White House. They carried dozens of coffins draped in flags or black cloth to draw attention to the more than 1,300 U.S. military service members who have died in the Iraq war.

But the biggest protest was along the parade route. For several blocks toward the beginning, protesters far outnumbered supporters. They were sprinkled throughout the crowd along much of the rest of the route and again made up the majority of the crowd near Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House.

Answer Coalition, an anti-war group, was given a permit to congregate and set up bleachers near the start of the parade route. As the president's limousine approached, riot police stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a human barricade.Many in the group chanted: "Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Bush and Cheney go away!" Others, including Ryan Rebarchick, simply turned their backs toward the limousine as a sign of disapproval.

"I can't respect him at all. He has done so many things wrong -- with the war and the rest of his policies -- that he doesn't deserve to be president," said Rebarchick, 23, a waitress.

Times staff writers Warren Vieth, Johanna Neuman and Justin Dickerson contributed to this report.