Bush breaks for barbecue, votes

For $21.85, President Bush got three barbecue pork sandwiches, an order of ribs, and a handful of votes.

Following his speech at the Port of Charleston on Thursday, Bush apparently was in the mood for barbecue. So, he stopped by the Meeting Street location of Sticky Fingers in Charleston to grab some for the road.

At 11:30 a.m., three Secret Service agents wearing trench coats scoped out the barbecue restaurant.

The agents wouldn’t reveal anything, but, as they wandered through the restaurant, Sticky Fingers co-owner Jeff Goldstein watched Bush finish his speech on television.

“Within 15 minutes, the whole motorcade came down Meeting Street,” he said.

Next thing Goldstein knew, the president of the United States was in his restaurant.

“He just kind of approached with another flock of Secret Service men,” he said.

Bush chatted with restaurant workers and customers, signing autographs and taking pictures.

“He was saying hi and who he was and we were like, ‘Yeah, we know. You’re the president,’” said manager Ernestine Brown.

Bush ordered three barbecue pork sandwiches with fries. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was with him, told the restaurant to throw in an order of Memphis-style ribs, Goldstein said.

“I was sort of torn between wanting to talk to him and wanting to be in the kitchen so his ribs and sandwiches were perfect,” Goldstein said.

Bush tried to pay the tab with cash, but an agent already had given the staff a White House credit card.

“Unless John Kerry or John Edwards or whomever comes in real soon for some barbecue, we’re all going to vote for George Bush,” Goldstein said.

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“He’s a good man. He does a lot of stuff. I’m only 9 years old.”

— Tony Cross of Moncks Corner, when asked why he came to wave to Bush’s motorcade

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Dominique Lopez, who grew up in Quebec and now lives in Charleston, waited four hours to hear the president speak.

But her persistence paid off.

She got more than words from the president.

“I got to shake his hand!” she said.

Asked if she is an American citizen, Lopez replied: “I’m working on it.”

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“Nobody 4 Prez 2004”

— Sign held by protester Matthew Phelps of Charleston, who did not vote in Tuesday’s primary. “I don’t really recognize the system,” he said.

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Protester Marcella Guerriero of Charleston brought a large poster to protest Bush’s visit.

On one side, it announced “Vote Here Today.” Guerriero explained that she had made use of the sign during Tuesday’s Democratic primary, when she was a poll worker.

The other side of the sign said nothing. No antiwar slogan. No anti-Bush message. Nothing.

Asked how the blankness aided her protest, Guerriero said she was so overwhelmed by what she dislikes about the Bush administration that she couldn’t figure out what to write.

“I don’t know what to say anymore,” she said. “I’m speechless.”

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“I flew down on Air Force One with some of the members of the mighty South Carolina congressional delegation, starting with Sen. Lindsey Graham. He was telling me what to do during the entire flight.”

— President Bush

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The small crowd that came out to protest the president largely opposed the war in Iraq, but many of them did not vote for antiwar candidates in Tuesday’s Democrat primary.

Several said they cast ballots for U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. Others had voted for U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

A quick, unscientific survey did not turn up a vote for the candidates who most stridently campaign against the war in Iraq — U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Asked about her vote for Edwards, Bush protester Melanie Knight of Columbia said she is well aware that Edwards favored a resolution that gave Bush the authority to send troops to Iraq. That bothered her, she said, “but he did vote against the $87 billion” for the reconstruction of the Middle Eastern nation.

Actually, Knight continued, her views most closely align with those of Kucinich. But she wants to oust Bush, she said., and Edwards “has the popular appeal.”

Jason Maglaughlin of Charleston, who voted for Kerry, said the senator’s vote for the resolution was not a vote for war, but an authorization for the use of force as a last resort.

He called Bush’s invocation of the resolution “a clear abuse.”

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“Bush Go Home to Daddy”

— Sign held by London Collier, 23 months old, the youngest person to show up to protest Bush’s visit

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Amid a loooooooong list of fellow Republicans, President Bush recognized one Democrat in the crowd — Charleston Mayor Joe Riley.

“Mr. Mayor, thank you for coming,” Bush told the crowd. “You’re the mayor of a great city. Last time I saw the mayor he said, ‘Need I remind you that your mother was educated in this great city?’

“No, you didn’t need to remind me, Mr. Mayor — she reminds me all the time.”

Former first lady Barbara Bush, then Barbara Pierce, graduated from Charleston’s Ashley Hall Prep School in 1943.

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25

Number of anti-Bush protesters

25

Number of vehicles in Bush’s presidential motorcade

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It sounded like a burst of machine-gun fire, and it served as an eerie reminder.

The noise — apparently produced by sound equipment in the room — startled some of the several thousand listeners in the cavernous ballroom of the Washington Hilton Hotel as President Bush spoke earlier in the day at the National Prayer Breakfast.

The interruption occurred as Bush was talking about how American soldiers have been involved in reconstruction projects in Iraq.

“It was an interaction between wireless microphones and the sound system, akin to a feedback effect,” White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy said. “It was not a 21-gun salute.”

The Hilton is the same hotel where former President Reagan was shot in 1981 as he walked toward his limousine after a speech.

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“I appreciate my tax cut. We saved money. And (the cuts) can’t just be for the rich because we’re not rich.”

— Lorry Anderson of Charleston, on why she came out to support Bush

The Associated Press contributed to this report.