The ad's title: "Call Rocky and Tell Him to Stop Embarrassing Utah." It's running 20 times a day on AM radio stations in Salt Lake City until the mayor's Wednesday rally against Bush administration policies.

The spot seems more directed at invited guest Cindy Sheehan. Somehow, she escaped being called "Satan's messenger," although she is labeled "anti-American." The Republicans encourage listeners to call Anderson's office and jam his phone lines.

"Everything [Anderson] says is nasty, rude and without decorum," Hartley said. "If he hadn't planned on protesting in such an offensive manner it wouldn't be a problem. . . . We believe there is a right and a wrong way to do things."

In the days leading up to the national convention of the American Legion winning the Trifecta (Bush-Rice-Rumsfeld) nearly all dialogue has focused on the war in Iraq. We're living with it daily, but no more so than those in Iraq, where our military brass promises that Baghdad is on the rise while an average of 50 people a day turn up dead in that country. Seems worth a protest or two, doesn't it?

And yet, if you subtract every Utahn who continues to unequivocally support it, you'll find a growing number of mainstream Americans - Republicans among them - who find plenty to disagree with besides the war. Today I ask you to consider other good reasons for protesting the president:

A national debt that the U.S. Treasury cites as $8.5 trillion, and continuing budget deficits. It's a combination of reckless spending with scant regard for the next generation, and the next, and the next and the next. Add to it the arrogance of cutting taxes, while supporting an occupation of Iraq that Bush vows will continue through his presidency. That debt has the power to crush your children and grandchildren. Meantime, just keep calling a presidential protest "un-American."

I asked the state GOP's Hartley to address the runaway spending issue. Fiscal conservatives know it's a chink in the Bush Teflon. "A lot of Republicans have concerns about spending and other issues," he said. "But it's another thing to be so disrespectful to a sitting president."

Meanwhile:

With the laser beamed on the Middle East, domestic issues barely get a wink anymore. What happened to the Social Security emergency? Any serious buzz on health care reform? Federal insistence on immigration reform blew through the country like a hard north wind earlier this year, then all but died. No doubt, the states will be stuck to grapple with it, with little direction from D.C.

This president tried, with his push for warrantless wiretapping, to set back civil liberties two centuries. Last Thursday, Bush adviser Karl Rove claimed illegal eavesdropping on Americans might have changed history. "Imagine," he said, "if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome," the Associated Press reported.

Thanks to a federal judge's order to end the surveillance, we can keep enjoying a private phone conversation.

What about protesting Bush's drive to erode the constitutional principle of checks and balances on government powers? (See above: wiretapping that passes no judicial or congressional scrutiny.) Yes, we live in a precarious time, punctuated by war and terrorism. This president may be "the decider," but he is no king. It's worth a reminder.

There you have it. Five good reasons (counting the war) to protest the prez. Think it over. You might come up with a few more of your own.

hmullen@sltrib.com or 801-257-8610