People are spilling out of the confines of the park and onto the streets. The organizers have had to begin the presentations early. More people have arrived than they or the permitting authorities anticipated. I speak with a couple from Illinois. Their rancor is aimed at the Chief Justice, but they swear never to address George W. Bush as President.
Boos rise from the crowd and interrupt the speaker on the platform.
The people jeer as a city employee, whose identity is hidden by a ski mask, rides the bucket of a cherry picker high into a tree to cut down an effigy of George W. Bush. Signs are free speech. Burning an American flag is free speech. Hanging effigy in protest of the then president-elect is not free speech. It is a crime and the public censors remove the symbol abruptly.