Archive: Let them come to Portland!

(I'm behind schedule on new posts, so here's an item from the vaults. It connects up rather nicely with a hometown event last week: the foreign policy debate between arch neoconservative and Pentagon go-to guy Richard Perle, and newly elected Democratic National Committee head and former presidential candidate Howard Dean. The results did get some sanitized coverage on the networks, but here's an insider's unfiltered account.

Portland: not as big or congested as Seattle, not as hip or weird as San Francisco, but it has a charm all its own.

-bn
2/25/05)

August 23, 2002

With apologies to the memory of John Kennedy: Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "Civis Romanus sum." Today, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Portlander."

Last night President Bush was in town for a GOP fundraiser ($1000 to attend, $5,000 for a small, closed meeting with #43, $25,000 for a picture of you and #43). About 1500 protesters outside the Hilton, shouting "dump Bush, not bombs," completely spoiled the effect.

The front page of this morning's Portland Tribune has a picture of a riot cop pepper-spraying a man who's squirting him with a water bottle--even though the man's clearly behind (i.e., on the correct, legal, First-Amendment-protected side of) the police barricade at the time. Both the Oregonian and the Tribune reported parents who brought their kids to see a peaceful demonstration, or to have a look at the president, and got sprayed and had to flee the rubber bullets and bean-bag guns.

Still, Portland being Portland, it was all over by early evening and everyone was home at a sensible hour. It was a weeknight, after all.

Nevertheless, this morning Portland appears to have joined the pantheon of cities with iconic status. According to the Oregonian:

Thursday's protest was relatively calm compared with a clash two years ago between police and demonstrators, as well as similar conflicts when the first President Bush visited more than a decade ago.

Although the crowd of 300 was much smaller during a May Day rally in 2000, it led to property damage and 19 arrests and a lengthy debate about whether police used the proper amount of force.

About 30 people were arrested in the 1991 demonstration against then-President Bush. Similar demonstrations against Bush and then-Vice President Dan Quayle in 1989 and 1990 led to dozens of arrests and prompted White House officials to label Portland "Little Beirut."

Some cities have become symbols of a historical moment: Rome, Jerusalem, Berlin, Beirut . . . Portland? As a friend says, the question isn't so much Why Portland? as Why not anyplace else?

Lass' sie nach Portland kommen--let them come to Portland!