WASHINGTON - They came to cheer a new president. Some came to jeer the old one as well.

As a helicopter carried George W. Bush away from the U.S. capital where he has served as president for the past eight years, those in the crowd sang the taunting sports anthem, “Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.” 

The 43rd president certainly didn’t hear them. But he might have seen the “Arrest Bush” signs waved by some spectators as he rode in the presidential limousine toward the Capitol with his successor Barack Obama.

He also might have heard the chants of “No more Bush” shortly before the swearing-in ceremony began.

The sentiment was apparently widespread.

“People have been coming up to me all day saying, ‘Nice sign, let me take a picture,’” said Washington prison guard Jewell Lee, 44, referring to her styrofoam sign that said simply: “GET OUT.”

Some in the crowd taunted Bush with his own words and slogans.

“We are the Deciders,” read one hand-lettered sign, in a jab at the man who famously styled himself “The Decider.”

A couple miles north of the inaugural festivities, a painted bedsheet hung out the window of a house in Washington’s Mt. Pleasant neighborhood read “Mission Accomplished,” echoing a banner hung behind Bush at a rally shortly after the invasion of Iraq.

Among the hundreds of thousands jamming the Washington mall, Obama hats, buttons and shirts were common. Many said they had traveled long distances to witness the swearing-in of America’s first black president.

That goodwill might not last forever.

“I don’t care what color he is,” said Garrell Winstead, a 67-year-old real estate investor from Cincinnati, Ohio.  “If the economy doesn”t improve and if he doesn’t create enough jobs, patience will evaporate.”

(Writing by Andy Sullivan; reporting by Diane Bartz, Mason, Randall Mikkelsen, Paul Rucker, Andrea Shalal-esa, Jim Wolf, Deborah Zabarenko and Patrick Rucker)

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar (A helicopter carrying former President George W. Bush leaves the U.S. Capitol following the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Jan. 20)

Critics of outgoing President George W. Bush turned a stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue outside the White House into a  rowdy street theater on the eve of his handover of power to Barack Obama.

An activist coalition calling itself ShoeBush.org piled a motley collection of dozens of old shoes, including tan combat boots said to have been worn by U.S. troops in Iraq and children’s bright yellow flip-flops, at what amounted to Bush’s doorstep.

“We wanted to shoo and boo Bush on his last day in office,” said Ann Wilcox of Washington D.C., who marched with the group of about 500 peace activists.

The footwear was tossed between Inaugural parade reviewing stands under watchful eyes of uniformed Secret Service officers. It was a reminder of an Iraqi journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his two shoes at Bush during a news conference marking the outgoing president’s farewell visit to Iraq.

A hooded, black-clad man posing as the Grim Reaper stood nearby with a sign saying “Death thanks Bush and Cheney.” The reaper, in an interview, added: “They’ve been very good for business.” A giant Bush bobblehead in prisoner’s stripes paraded nearby, his hands in chains as if being led away under arrest.

Others handed out black and white postcard-sized signs urging “Arrest Bush” to the hundreds of onlookers, many who had come from afar to celebrate Obama’s swearing-in at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue at noon on Tuesday.

“You voted for change now use your voice to demand justice,” the group’s handout urged. “Tell the new U.S. attorney general to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the Bush administration.”

Elsewhere on the street, about two dozens dancers from a group called DanceMetroDC staged an improvised dance fest. One of the dancers, pivoting to the four points of the compass, intoned “Change,  Change,  Change,  Change” as fellow dancers gyrated in turn.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar (Bush bobblehead at Inaugural protest, Jan. 19)

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Just two days before the U.S. presidential election, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden smells victory for Barack Obama.

Speaking at Florida State University in Tallahassee, his first in a three-stop swing through the battleground state of Florida on Sunday, Biden pointed to a dramatic bronze statue entitled “Unconquered” outside the university’s stadium.

“This is a great place to have this rally in front of the ‘Seminole Unconquered’. I tell you, I don’t think you ever approach this stadium without smelling victory in the air,” Biden said. 

The statue depicts a spear-brandishing Seminole Indian astride a rearing horse and was designed to “capture the indomitable spirit” of the Seminole people, says the university’s website. 
 

With polls showing Obama ahead of Republican John McCain, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson was also in an upbeat mood when he introduced Biden. 
 

“Do you smell victory in the air?,” Nelson said. “I suspect on Tuesday night we are going to be singing ‘happy days are here again’,” he told about 2,000 enthusiastic supporters. 
 

A small group of protesters shouted anti-Obama slogans on the outskirts of the rally and Biden had a message for them and other McCain supporters who were criticizing Obama. 
 

“Not only will we, but they in the parking lot (the protesters), they will be calling Barack Obama something else. They will call him President Obama — President Barack Obama, commander-in-chief of the United States of America.” 

Biden, who became a senator in 1972, poked fun at a skit on NBC’s ‘Saturday Night Live’ this weekend when McCain tried to sell a talking doll in the image of the Delaware senator. 

“I was told by one of my staff guys that I gotta get a Biden pull doll,” he said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Biden and Obama campaign in Florida)

A standoff between rock fans and police led to 102 arrests Wednesday night when fired-up concertgoers took to the streets after a Rage Against the Machine show.

Several hundred fans of the band, whose songs include “Take the Power Back,” and “Bullet in the Head,” marched through downtown Minneapolis after the band finished its set at the Target Center arena.

The show ended at roughly the same time as the third night of the Republican convention across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. Fans of the politically radical band mixed with exuberant Republicans headed to exclusive parties where they toasted vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s speech.

As police in riot gear faced shirtless rock fans in the streets, Republicans looked on from the rooftop deck of the exclusive R. Norman’s steakhouse, where bigwigs like Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman pressed the flesh.

Many of those at the party were not impressed with the spectacle.

“They’ll claim police brutality, then sue and win and make enough money to come to the next convention,” one partygoer said.

“They can sit there all night because they don’t have jobs,” said another.

The protesters didn’t sit there all night, in fact. Police arrested 102  after they occupied an intersection and refused to leave, said Bill Palmer of the Joint Information Center.

Most were ticketed for presence at an unlawful assembly, but two were booked on assault and obstruction of legal process, Palmer said.

The invigorating scent of pepper spray perfumed downtown St. Paul again on Tuesday.

Police used percussion grenades, tear gas and pepper spray to push protesters out of downtown at the end of an otherwise peaceful march for poor people that drew more than 1,000 participants.

The event largely avoided the chaos that engulfed the area on Monday, when bands of black-clad anarchists smashed store windows and threw rocks and bottles at police.

Police said they had made 10 arrests over the course of the day, far short of the 284 arrested on Monday.

Earlier Tuesday, anarchists vowed further disruptions througout the week. The Secret Service warned that some might target journalists.

Tuesday’s march, organized by the Poor People’s Human Economic Human Rights Campaign, picked up steam after it passed the State Capitol, where the police had canceled a performance by the rock band Rage Against the Machine.

Protesters headed downtown, and organizers tried to deliver a message to the Republicans through the security fence surrounding the Xcel Center, where Republicans were holding their convention. Many protesters went home after that.

St. Paul Police Commander Doug Holtz said there were several groups of 100 or so who were ordered to disperse but refused to do so. Some tried to climb over the security fence surrounding the Xcel Center, he said.

The confrontation took place near Mickey’s Diner, a neon landmark that stays open 24 hours — a rarity in sleepy St. Paul.

Police herded the protesters back toward the State Capitol, blocks from the XCel Center and the plate-glass windows of downtown.

By 9 p.m., most proteseters had dispersed. Were they done for the night, or were they simply lying low?

For a clue, check the anarchists’ Twitter feed. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

(Additional reporting by Mallika Rao, Jackie Frank and Adam Pasick)

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Photo credit: Reuters/Damir Sagolj

ST. PAUL - Police in riot gear used pepper spray and smoke bombs against a few hundred violent protesters on Monday, and at least a dozen were arrested outside the arena where the Republican party opened its presidential convention.

In the video above, a police officer lobs a smoke bomb in the direction of the camera.

Officers on horseback, motorcycles and bicycles chased down a group of rock- and bottle-throwing protesters that had broken off from a larger, largely peaceful, march by as many as 10,000 people. The smaller group smashed police car windows and a Macy’s storefront, and a few threw glass bottles at police.

In the video above, police march down Kellogg Avenue in St Paul.

A Reuters reporter saw police handcuffing some of the protesters in a parking lot not far from the convention.

The demonstrators earlier had marched from the Minnesota state capitol to the heavily barricaded Xcel Center, where John McCain will accept the Republican presidential nomination later this week. They chanted anti-war slogans and waved signs criticizing President George W. Bush.

Public safety officials put the crowd at 8,000 to 10,000 and reported seven arrests.

The march wound past bus stops where advertisements from the Democratic National Committee showed Bush and McCain hugging with the slogan, “Does this look like change to you?”

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DENVER - “Saving the world is my hobby, I guess you could say, because I don’t play golf,” said Rick Fitzgerald, wearing a striped prison costume and holding a papier-mâché Dick Cheney head.

Moments earlier he had been wearing the Cheney head outside the Democratic National Convention chanting “Cheney in chains!” and shaking his plastic shackles for an obliging New York Post photographer. A papier-mâché Condoleezza Rice head sat at his feet.

Fitzgerald, who drove in from Longmont, Colo., was joined outside the Pepsi Center on Sunday by about a hundred protesters. But Fitzgerald doesn’t like the term.

“I’m an advocate,” he said. “We’re not protesting anything. We’re advocating for democracy.”

The convention to nominate Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate has drawn tens of thousands of delegates and journalists to Denver, along with hundreds of others who also want to make their voices heard.

“It’s awesome,” cried a spiky-haired young woman in a pink t-shirt as she surveyed the colorful protests. “The whole world is watching.”

What the world saw was a brigade of costumed protesters carrying colorful signs — some hand-lettered, some professionally printed — with demands that included the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the impeachment of George W. Bush and sustainable development all over the world.

Many of the protestors plan to continue on to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention next week.

Bob Kunst of Miami (left) was one of the few anti-Obama protesters, with a sign reading “Obama is bad for America and Israel,” to which he’d added a second, smaller poster reading “Democrats not united. Biden can’t help!”

Despite being outnumbered, Kunst said he was surprised by the positive reaction he received in Denver, with supportive comments from people driving by outweighing the negative ones.

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DENVER - Republican John McCain tried Tuesday to convince voters a McCain presidency would not amount to four more years of President George W. Bush, but he ran smack into hecklers bent on tying him to Bush’s unpopular war in Iraq.

“America must be a good citizen of the world, leading the way to address the danger of global warming and preserve our environment, strengthening existing international institutions and helping to build new ones,” McCain told an audience at the University of Denver.
 
The Arizona senator had barely uttered those words, charting a course away from Bush, when he was interrupted by hecklers chanting “Endless War! Endless War!”

The hecklers were shouted down by a larger crowd chanting “John McCain! John McCain!”
 
McCain no sooner started his speech again — announcing he would seek to reduce global nuclear stockpiles — when he was interrupted once more by anti-war protesters.
 
“What about Iraq? What about Iraq?” one shouted. Another unfurled a banner that said, “Iraq vets against the war.”
 
When the larger crowd shouted down the protesters again, McCain quipped, “This may turn into a longer speech than you had anticipated.”
 
“And by the way, I will never surrender in Iraq, my friends. I will never surrender in Iraq,” he added emphatically to applause and laughter. “Our American troops will come home with victory and with honor.”

McCain, 71, also took the opportunity to emphasize youth.
 
“For much of our history, the world considered the United States a young country. Today, we are the world’s oldest constitutional democracy, yet we remain a young nation. We still possess the attributes of youth — spirit, energy, vitality, and creativity. America will always be young as long as we are looking forward, and leading, to a better world,” he said.

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 Photo credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking (Top: McCain at Denver rally; bottom: protesters unfurl banner)

WASHINGTON - U.S. Capitol Police arrested dozens of protesters, many in wheelchairs, at the Senate office of  presidential candidate John McCain on Tuesday while to Arizona Republican was in Florida campaigning about health care as well as raising money.

The activists demanded to talk to McCain about his lack of support for legislation that would help poor handicapped people stay in their homes and out of nursing facilities.

McCain is the only presidential aspirant who has not endorsed the bill, said Bob Kafka, a spokesman for ADAPT, an activist group that staged the protest. Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support the bill, he said.

About 500 members of the group are in Washington this week celebrating their 25th anniversary of community activism, Kafka said. About 40 protesters were in McCain’s office with another 50 outside the hallway shouting to see McCain. Hundreds of others staged another demonstration outside the Republican National Committee near the Capitol, he said.

Kafka said Medicaid rules are forcing people who need care into nursing institutions. “The main thing that drives our organization is the passion to live in our communities,” he said.

McCain’s office had no immediate comment on the protest. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria (protesters follow McCain in Florida).