Bush’s LV visit lures protesters, support

As a group of protesters waited down the block for the chance to taunt President Bush's motorcade, Terry Davis stood by himself on the sidewalk in front of Boca Park and held up a hand-lettered sign about his son.

He said he picked the spot because he wanted to catch the eyes of motorists as they were diverted from the site of Bush's speech in Summerlin on Thursday.

He wanted them to know Zachariah did not die in vain, but that he opposes the war in Iraq and the president.

The 25-year-old Marine sergeant and married father of two was killed by a roadside bomb in Anbar province during his second Iraq deployment in January 2005.

Terry Davis said he thinks America is fighting "the wrong war" in Iraq, but his son's death is no more a waste than those who died in the jungles of Vietnam.

"I'm out here for my son and to basically say, 'Hey, America, wake up,'" he said.

The rest of Thursday's small protest, organized by the state Democratic Party, struck a less serious tone.

One man wore a giant foam cowboy hat as he walked the sidewalk. His sign listed the date next year that Bush will leave office above the words "sayonara sucker."

Nearby, a woman in a rubber Bush mask held out hands coated with blood-red paint. Once the motorcade had passed, she entertained her young son by pretending she was some kind of Bush monster.

Among the other props used was a picture of Bush dressed as a Nazi, a crudely made Jon Porter costume and a large foam hand with all the fingers folded down except for the middle one.

A crowd of about 25 people waved signs and chanted at the president's armor-plated limousine as it cruised down Rampart Boulevard on its way to Bush's speaking engagement at the Emerald at Queensridge.

By the time the speech was over and the motorcade drove by in the opposite direction, the group had grown to about 60.

Kirsten Searer, deputy executive director of the Nevada Democratic Party, said the turnout might have been better if organizers had more advance notice of Bush's visit. Then again, she said, "he's becoming somewhat irrelevant because people are focused on the candidates for 2008."

That view was not shared by a group of about a dozen women who emerged from a office building across from Boca Park to wave and cheer for the president as his car went by.

The Bush supporters and Bush protesters briefly heckled each other from opposite sides of the street and the political spectrum. The women were encouraged to "go back to Washington." The protesters were admonished to "get a job."

Before police closed the road to make way for the motorcade, the protesters also drew a range of reactions from passing motorists. Some honked in solidarity. Others shouted insults and made obscene gestures.

Shela Wallace wasn't there to join the demonstration. She decided to stop and see the president pass by after she ran into the roadblock on Rampart.

"I'd like to be down there," she said as she watched the crowd from about 50 feet away, "but I don't want to be associated with those people."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0350.