By Darryl Fears and Tracey A. Reeves
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 21, 2001 ; Page A25
Along the parade route on Constitution Avenue yesterday, the silver-haired man could not believe his rotten luck. In spite of all the Republicans who braved the icy rain to see President Bush roll toward his inaugural celebration, he wound up next to a Democrat holding balloons and a sign that read "Gore in 2004."
"Don't start with me," the silver-haired man said when the two accidentally bumped shoulders.
"I have as much right to be here as you do," the Gore supporter shot back.
The election that evenly divided the nation along Republican and Democratic lines was very much in evidence during what is usually a happy-days-are-here-again coronation of the American president.
On the Capitol steps, the new president touched on the angst, saying, "Sometimes our differences run so deep it seems we share a continent, not a country."
Down in the trenches, Americans were proving him right, engaging in a war of words, slogans and obscenities, some of them expressed through bullhorns, all of it reminiscent of election night and the agonizing ballot-counting ordeal that followed.
It picked up again near the spot where it seemingly ended, the Supreme Court. As promised, Democrats who supported Al Gore and believe that Bush's election wasn't legitimate showed up on the parade route with their provocative signs that read, among other things, "President-select." As expected, pro-Bush Republicans did not back down from the challenge, shouting "Gore losers!" to some protesters and "Get a life" to others.
Very little rough stuff between protesters and parade watchers was reported, police said. Sarcasm flew, not fists. Unfortunately, at times, schoolchildren, such as teacher Anne Canipe's group from Chesterfield, Va., got caught between groups exchanging obscenities and rude gestures.
"You're brainwashing your children," a bunch of protesters chanted at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
But Canipe gave as well as she took. "You don't know what democracy is," she said. "I just wanted to teach all the kids about history and I wanted them to think that protesters have a right to free speech, but this is just crazy."
In other areas, it was like oil and water mixing. There were young women with nose rings and pierced tongues looking disapprovingly at women in fur coats and hats. Dapper men in tailored slacks and shiny shoes walked past hipsters in faded jeans and high-top sneakers.
Cathy Horton, of Crawford, Tex., wasn't taking any chances at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. She was wearing a faux fur that looked a little too much like the real thing amid Democrats whose ranks were replete with animal rights activists.
Horton pulled her coat tightly to her, saying, quietly: "I'm glad the police are here. Thank God for the police." In case the cops faded away, she had a backup plan. "If I see anyone with a bucket of paint, I'm just going to say, 'Acrylic! Acrylic!' "
Fur haters didn't need paint -- mud did their dirty work for them. As Mary Ann Heller squished up a slope to watch the swearing-in ceremony near the Capitol steps, her coffee-colored floor-length fur dragged. But that didn't bother the Texas Republican as much as did the protesters.
"I think it's just despicable," she said. "I really do, because George Bush won fair and square, even with the recount."
Heller was standing next to a friend from Austin, Alan Sager, who happened to be Republican Party chairman for Travis County. "If they want to protest, they can protest, even though I think it's silly," he said.
But he wasn't going to just stand there and take it. "I've got a poster and some markers," Sager said. "So if there are a lot of signs on the parade route, I'm going to make my own sign."
He laughed, but behind the parade route at Constitution Avenue near D Street NE, a war of words almost ignited a fight. Someone in a pack of Williams College students who protested yesterday's inauguration went a little too far with his sarcasm.
He said the wrong thing to the wrong Republican, a tightly wound ball of muscle who was demonstrating against abortion. Looking for the unknown culprit, the Republican advanced menacingly on the students from Williamstown, Mass.
Mike Levien, a student organizer, tried to calm the situation. "Don't say anything to this man!" he cried. When that didn't work, he sounded a retreat before things got out of hand. "Okay, everybody move back!" another student said. "There's too much hate here. Too . . . much . . . hate!"
At most places, however, there was much more civility.
Between two sets of bleachers on 15th Street and Constitution Avenue NW, protesters Donna Barlett and Joe Gannon were engulfed in a sea of Bush supporters and parents with children.
There was no way the two were going to flash their anti-Bush signs and buttons at the passing motorcade in that thick crowd. But then something unusual happened. Non-protesters leaned out of the way so Barlett and Gannon could wave their signs whenever a car went by.
To show their appreciation, the protesters kept the rhetoric down. Soon, the excitement of the inauguration got too much for Bartlett. "Hold this," she said, handing her "Hail to the Thief" sign to Gannon. "I want to take some pictures."
