G.W. Bush 2nd Inauguration Parade, January 20th 2005, by C. Walker

From MemoryArchive

Who: C. Walker
What: George W. Bush 2nd Term Inauguration Parade & Protests
When: January 20th
Where: Parade route, across the street from the National Gallery. Washington, DC

I had just transfered colleges to American University in Washington, DC in January 2005. I had made a friend at my new student orientation named Megan. She and I went took the Metro from upper northwest DC to the Judiciary Square stop. We waded through crowds upon throngs upon hoards of people cris-crossing paths to get to their appropriate entrances to the parade route. People with tickets to see the actual inauguration (who had gold, silver and other various colored tickets indicating their seating zone) were heading towards the capitol building while people who did not have tickets were heading the opposite direction to the parade route where the preisdent and the inauguration parade would pass by after the ceremony swearing G.W. Bush back into office. Megan and I didn't want "trouble" so we decided to stay away both from the cowboy hat-wearing Bush supporters and from the more roudy anti-Bush demonstrators. It seemed that the further down the parade route one went the less support for Bush there was. We chose to go through the entrance about half way down the parade route. She and I were both wearing blue, the democratic color. Many other people in line for the security check were wearing red, the republican color. It was a subtle way of expressing your allegiances and feelings about the election's outcome. We stood in line for over an hour in what wasn't so much a line as a amorphous mass of bundled humanity. First the crowd was channeled into a sort of tunnel under a building and then into a three sided courtyard surrounded by mid rise office buildings. On the roof of all the buildings around us were men with binoculars and sniper rifles all surveyin the crowd and pacing back and forth. They all had on black vests with a million pockets, black pants with more pockets and black ski masks. There were police laced throughout the crowd as well. The security blob finally narrowed to a security line when we got close enough to the front that a lady police officer on a megaphone wanted the crowd to divide into male and female lines so that we could all have people of our same gender pat us down for weapons, bombs and other unnamed security risks. When I neared the front of the line Megan and I were separated. A woman in a practically neon red trench coat started making small talk with me about the parade. She eventually asked me if I was here in "support or protest". I hesitated, not wanting to have to explain my feelings or pretend to understand hers. I reluctantly said "protest". I think she understood my hesitation so she switched topics to commenting on how many people were wearing cowboy hats. We were patted down by a severe looking middle-aged woman with a very tight ponytail, politely said goodbye and walked our separate ways. I was very cold by this point and was wishing I had worn my warmer, if less politically charged black coat and brought my scarf and gloves. I walked to the top of a small grassy hill where I could see up the route to the capitol and down the parade route where probably thousands and thousands of people were milling about. I took out my cell phone and made a call to my dad, my mom and stepdad and my best friend in Seattle. I started all my messages to them with "Guess where I am...". After I finished my calls I stood on the hill looking for Megan. A french TV News crew a few feet away from me was making a live broadcast and a Russian one right behind me kept doing take after take of what must have been the introduction to the news of the day with the US Capitol in the background. I spotted Megan and jogged down off the hill to meet her. We pushed our way through crowds and around bleachers under the noticeable supervision of the snipers on the rooftops. We reached what was a satisfactorily anti-Bush section of the route and stopped. People had all kinds of signs and props but were relatively quiet. Once the parade began they became a little more excited. The parade began after what seemed like an eternity of standing. The parade route was flanked by two rows of crowd control barriers. In the four or five feet between the barriers there stood a line of policemen. They were spaced out every ten or fifteen feet. They were very nice and tolerant and did not react in any way to the crowd, even the louder protesters. No one tried to jump the barrier or cause trouble so the police officers just stood there and watched the crowd calmly. After a while of waiting in the cold with the crowd and the police officers I noticed there seemed to be a lot of men in trench coats with earpieces walking briskly up and down the route. I figured the parade was about to start because security was picking up. A few minutes later I saw a pack of the men in trench coats walking down the parade route from the direction of the capitol down. As the pack got closer I realized that there was a man standing in the middle of the secret service agents, waving to the crowd. It was Senator John McCain. Now, I am certainly not a fan of George W. Bush but I don’t despise all republicans or anything like that. I actually like and would consider voting for John McCain if he was the republican nominee for president. The protesters around Megan and I started to “boo” Mr. McCain. He laughed and nodded and continued to wave. I thought it was a nice gesture on his part to walk, even if still escorted by security, outside of an armored car by people who “booed” him. His good natured way of handling getting hassled by the protesters made me like him even more. I smiled and waved at him sheepishly. After more waiting in the cold all the people along the parade route, no matter their political persuasion, were eager for the parade to start, Bush to pass by and the parade to end so that we could all go get hot chocolate or go back somewhere warm. Eventually it began. I heard a wave of hooting, yelling, cheering, booing and noise coming in a slow wave down the parade line. The announcers’ booths were maybe another two hundred feet down the parade route from where Megan and I were standing so we would see something in the parade pass and then thirty seconds to a minute later we would hear it identified over the loud speaker system. The protesters were getting all riled up because they saw a motorcade, surrounded by secret service men on foot, slowly creeping down the street. It was a black limo, with a few motorcycle escorts following and leading it. Even though there were jeers along with applause all the way down the parade route, when the motorcade neared the protesters it sped up from a crawling five miles per hour to at least ten or twelve miles per hour. The crowd of protesters went wild with booing and yelling and sign waving. While they were energized with anger and some hate for President Bush I didn’t feel that the yelling, cursing and anger was really all that emotional. Sure it was an intense outburst but from personal experience I feel that if you sat down individually with the most enthusiastic protestors of President Bush it would not be so much that they hate George W. Bush, the man so much as they are saddened and frustrated by the world they feel he is creating. War is violent. Violent anger and aggression is the ironic way that many protesters chose to express their feelings. While I may be as socially liberal as they come and while I’m sure anger was the genuine feeling of that moment I don’t think that it was the real root of the emotion that people feel deep down. War doesn’t make humanity angry, it makes humanity sad. The ultimate irony of that outburst of anger and hostility towards the motorcade came thirty seconds later. The yelling and swearing and intensity of the moment lulled just enough that we could hear the announcement over the loudspeaker naming the person in the motorcade: Bill Clinton. There was a pause in the crowd. Everyone realized they had just mistaken one of the more favorable presidents of recent memory for the man they hated the most. “Sorry, Bill” was the sentiment of that next minute. A second motorcade passed, this time people were a little weary of enthusiastic outbursts. I think it turned out that the second motorcade was Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney. A few more minutes passed and then the final motorcade came. Bush had been walking outside his limo for some of the parade route. With more sympathetic stretches of the parade he was strolling with the Secret Service agents and waving a leather-gloved hand to the crowd. Later he had apparently gotten back into his limo, with only a few inches of tinted bulletproof window rolled down and waved to the crowd with only his arm showing. Just as Bill Clinton’s and Dick Cheney’s motorcades had sped up for the stretch of the parade near the protesters the President’s motorcade whizzed by in a flash. His motorcade had significantly more Secret Service accompaniment and many more motorcycles rolling along in front and behind the limo. The police officers working the detail between the crowd control fences had to remain facing the crowd, but one could see their eyes shift right , towards the approaching motorcade when it neared us. The wave of hooting and yelling an applause and the din of loud, personal political expression from all ends of the spectrum followed the motorcade farther and farther away until it couldn’t be heard over the murmurs of the crowd near me. For me it was a disappointing moment. I had no expectations of the day. I had no preconceived hopes of seeing the president or having some political epiphany because of my proximity to power, but I had been a few feet away from the most powerful man in the world and did not see him. At that moment I wished I had taken that day to gain experience, not express my political views by standing with the protesters. The parade began in earnest with its Texan-themed floats and American flag-waving. Megan and I gave each other a knowing look and knew that we both wanted to leave. We shuffled out of the protesting crowd and walked away from the distant sound of high school marching bands and cheering. We wandered around the cold, nearly deserted streets of downtown DC parallel to the parade until we found café, sat down and ate our warm food. Away from the excitement of the day I realized, half disappointed, that just as the next four years of Bush’s second presidential term would not bring change, being in DC on inauguration day had not brought personal change to me. I was richer for the experience, but it was a hollow richness. I suppose there is always next time.