www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25250-2005Jan20.html
Sign Up Now THERE WERE, in the end, protesters along the route of President Bush's in augural parade. It is conceivable that the president might have even cau ght a glimpse of them. What there were not nearly enough of, however, we re ordinary people: Washingtonians, out-of-towners or anyone at all who was neither a Bush donor with tickets to the bleachers nor a demonstrato r with a permit to wave a sign. In advance of the inauguration, the National Park Service granted the Presidential Ina ugural Committee exclusive rights to nearly all of the sidewalk space al ong Pennsylvania Avenue, space to which the public had no access. When P ost reporters asked the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Secur ity and the DC police this week where the public would be able to stan d, no answer was forthcoming. Grudgingly, a Park Service spokesman said on Wednesday that the public might be able to find some open areas east of Seventh Street or west of 12th Street, a statement that did not exact ly encourage casual parade-goers. Some stood for hours in the cold, trying to get through checkpoints. But many, we fear, simply didn't bother to go, discouraged by the u nwelcoming atmosphere of the inauguration with the heaviest security in history, the negative advance publicity, the closed streets and the phal anx of police officers lined up to protect the politicians from the peop le.
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