This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Posted: 7:31 PM- Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson told a crowd gathered outside his old office that President Bush should not feel welcome when he travels the United States -- even in the reddest state in the union.
"For the third time in as many years, President George Bush is visiting Salt Lake City," Anderson told demonstrators on the Washington Square west lawn. "And for the third time, thousands of us are gathered here on the occasion of his visit to raise our voices out of great concern for our nation."
But despite the outspoken ex-mayor's support, an appearance by a famous Vietnam war whistle-blower and the backing of a powerful progressive political organization, the size of the protest did not near the past demonstrations Anderson referenced.
The crowd in Salt Lake City appeared to be a little more than 500 strong, and a sister protest in Park City, where Bush was staying overnight Wednesday, drew several hundred more.
Those numbers did not dissuade Anderson from giving a fiery speech in which he decried those who refused to speak out against the Bush administration's war in Iraq and its domestic surveillance policies back home.
"Let us all keep in mind silence is the essential collaborator with evil," Anderson said. "Complacency is complicity. And unwillingness to stand up to and challenge wrongdoing is itself wrongdoing."
About 100 protesters gathered at Treasure Mountain Middle School to greet the president when he arrived in Park City aboard Marine One. Another 150 or so later attended a "Bush Bash Barbecue" at the City Park to celebrate, as organizer Rich Wyman put it, "the end of the Bush administration."
-- Chris Smart contributed to this report.