Salt Lake Mayor Booed At VFW Convention
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kutv.com
SALT LAKE CITY Mayor Rocky Anderson was nonplussed by the boos that greeted him Monday when he addressed the 106th convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars before a scheduled speech by President Bush.
Anderson, a Democrat, has called on anti-war activists and Democrats to conduct "the biggest demonstration this state has ever seen.''
"Our beef is not with the military, it's with the president and his administration,'' Anderson said after his speech. ``We all need to support our troops. They're doing the very best they can, they're putting all on the line as they have since the country's founding, and we need to be grateful for that.''
Anderson's calls for protesters comes in a state that gave Bush his strongest support in last fall's election–71.5 percent of the vote.
The anti-war rally was scheduled at a downtown city park a few blocks away from the Salt Palace convention center, where Bush was to speak. About 100 people also had gathered outside the convention center, waving signs that said such things as "War begins with W'' and "Honk for Peace.''
"I don't think anybody's freedom of expression should be chocked because of the extreme folks that are going to come down and out and try to shout everyone down,'' Anderson said.
He instead called on people to discuss what he described as the nation being "headed in the wrong direction.''
"We need to be able to talk about these things, we need to be able to do it reasonably, we need to do it in an informed way, and not just screaming at each other like these people are doing,'' Anderson said.
(© 2005 The Associated Press. |
