Jan 2001,Protesters Rain on ABC's Parade of unelected Smirk

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

http://www.fair.org/extra/0103/abc-parade.html

Protesters Rain on ABC's Parade

By Jim Naureckas

Unlike the New York Times, broadcast outlets did not have the luxury of banishing the protesters at George W. Bush's inauguration to the back pages. As Bush's limousine was booed in real time, some of the protests couldn't help but make it onto TV--to the obvious discomfort of the on-air personnel.

Take ABC News, whose January 20 coverage was presided over by Peter Jennings, a self-proclaimed fan of inauguration parades: "In a short while now...the inaugural parade will begin which, I have to tell you, I always think is one of the great moments of any political year, of any year."
Earlier in the day, he cheerfully introduced analysis by colleagues like Barbara Walters ("today George W. Bush became not just a president, but presidential") and reportage by the likes of Cokie Roberts: "George Bush said that he was humbled and honored after he had been sworn in. Former President Bush was very happy. Mrs. Bush, Barbara Bush, went over and greeted the coat checkers who were very excited to see her."

But when this celebratory mood was jarred by dissenting signs and chants manifesting along the parade route, coverage turned sour. "The demonstrators want to be heard and some of them simply want to do damage, as best we can tell from the reports down there on the street," Jennings reported. "Some people have just come for the sake of demonstrating," he said at another point. "We see lots of anti-Bush demonstrators having placed themselves…at various places in the District so they can't be missed by television cameras today," he noted with some chagrin.

This disdain seemed shared by ABC News' reporting staff on the ground. Terry Moran complained about the "very nasty signage" which was "downright ill-mannered," carried by "what may be a fringe element of people who are out here."

"It is a grab bag of angry people who may not be spoiling the parade, but are certainly impacting it," Moran concluded. To which Jennings responded: "Well put, Terry. Certainly not spoiling the parade for people at home, but maybe causing resentment among many people at home."

Jennings and Moran worriedly speculated ..........MORE


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http://www.hail-to-the-thief.org/


Sieg heil!

[Atman]

1. Relive the moment you never saw...

We never heard about it back then. But Bush hasn't erased history yet. Give him time.

www.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/20/protest.wrap/

[TheBlob]

2. Not to mention "The Egg"

"That glorious egg" as one writer described it a few years ago, which hit Bush's limo.

I've heard this Inaugural parade was one of the most 'unwelcoming' in our history (even though news coverage did it's best to shield that).

[VeniceBeat]

3. I Wish I Had a Tape of the CSPAN Coverage of That Day

Real time. No voiceover. Overcast and drizzling. Protesters with signs along every inch of the Parade Route, chanting, jeering. The Limos stopping time and again because of protesters in the road. Gloomy. Portentous. Gutwrenching.

Anyone But Bush in 2004!

Let's get to work!

[Mari333]

4. I was there.

I was right, and I was at the other marches in DC also...we are a "focus group"..
and we were right. Too bad no one listened then.

[LizW]

5. Fabulous!

I've never heard this! (I was in self-imposed news exile for a year after the "selection")

There were signs? And protesters in the streets? And EGG on the limo?

I love it. I had no idea.

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

6. W's Limo was 'egged', forced to speed thru protesters

http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/01/20/protests/

Thousands protest Bush's Inauguration
Demonstrators lining the parade route give the new presidential limo an unwelcome splash on its way to the White House.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Daryl Lindsey

Jan. 20, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- Not since Richard Nixon paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1973 has a presidential Inauguration drawn so many protesters -- and last time, people were out to protest the Vietnam War.

Demonstrators turned out in droves on Saturday -- a miserably gray and drizzly day, with temperatures hovering in the mid-30s -- to protest the Inauguration of President George W. Bush, whose election was contested all the way to the Supreme Court. Police would not estimate the size of the crowd, but many thousands of protesters were in evidence.

"The level of people on the streets shows that people are really upset about lack of democratic process," says Liz Butler of the Justice Action Movement, the umbrella organizing committee responsible for the protest. "They took it to the streets. We saw tens of thousands. We saw far more protesting Bush than supporting him."

They came out in scores, co-existing on the parade route with supporters of the new president and lining Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. Interspersed between Bush-Cheney signs and Texas flags were thousands of protest placards, bearing inscriptions such as "Bush Cheated," "Hail to the Thief," "Selected not elected," "Bushwhacked by the Supremes" and "Golly Jeb, we pulled it off!" There were also plenty of R-rated signs, like "Dick and Bush" and "George Wanker Bush." One poster included a caricature of a metaphorically toothless Bush in the image of Alfred E. Neuman.

MORE.........