More Americans losing jobs daily and we can't pay for gas for gas in our
cars in order to sit in traffic on our traffic jammed highways; and Bush
welcomes more immigrants into America. Never mind that we need more people
here like we need more air, water and habitat destruction; President Moron
gets a photo-op. I'm only sorry that more people in the audience didn't
yell
for his impeachment. 198 more days and (please Lord) we'll be rid of him.
Of
course, he'll be replaced with someone who will want to throw open
America's
doors to even more legal and illegal "immigrants."
Bush Welcomes New American Citizens
Antiwar Demonstrators Interrupt Annual Naturalization Ceremony at
Monticello
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 5, 2008; Page A02
CHARLOTTESVILLE, July 4 -- President Bush kicked off the Fourth of July at
the hilltop estate of one of the nation's Founding Fathers, where he
welcomed dozens of new American citizens from 30 countries.
Bush's address Friday at the annual Independence Day naturalization
ceremony
at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello was immediately interrupted by a handful
of
antiwar demonstrators, one of whom repeatedly shouted, "Impeach Bush!"
Bush,
apparently unfazed, offered a holiday-appropriate response.
"To my fellow citizens-to-be, we believe in free speech in the United
States
of America," Bush said to hearty applause.
Six protesters, including one in a cartoonish Uncle Sam hat, were
"voluntarily escorted" away from the crowd of 3,000, and no arrests were
made, said Lee Catlin, a spokeswoman for Albemarle County.
The citizen****p ceremony has been held annually since 1963 outside
Jefferson's colonnaded plantation home in the verdant Piedmont hills.
Bush,
the fourth U.S. president to address the event, lauded the "guiding
principles" Jefferson laid out in the Declaration of Independence, saying
they had long inspired immigrants like those gathered before him.
"They've made America a melting pot of cultures from all across the world.
They've made diversity one of the great strengths of our democracy," he
said. "And all of us here today are here to honor and pay tribute to that
great notion of America."
The 74 new citizens (72 adults and two children) filed one by one across a
sun-drenched stage, and they shook hands with their new president. There
was
Ali Hussain Al Asady, an Iraqi man with a small U.S. flag sticking out of
one buttonhole of his striped ****rt. There was Sawsan Mohamed El Fatih
Zeyada, a Sudanese woman wearing a vibrant floral head scarf. And there
was
Julia White Freeman, a petite girl born eight years ago in China, who got
more than a handshake: Bush lifted her off the ground and propped her on
his
hip.
Julia, donning a red-white-and-blue dress tailor-made for the occasion,
smiled sheepishly.
"I knew already I was an American, but it just made me feel very good and
different," Julia said after the ceremony, as she soaked in the atmosphere
with her parents, John Freeman and Jennifer White of Charlottesville, and
her sister, Emily, who, like Julia, was adopted from China. "I feel that
it's very exciting."
The experience was heady for other new citizens, too, all Virginia
residents
who seemed to realize that they were taking the oath under special
cir***stances. Many naturalization ceremonies occur in places such as
federal courtrooms.
It was inspiring for Zeyada, 40, a native of Khartoum who is studying for
a
master's degree and hopes to become a psychologist. She, like many others
in
the group, said she was "proud to be an American." But she said that when
she looked at the cast on the stage -- Bush, Virginia Gov. Timothy M.
Kaine
(D) and a gaggle of federal judges in black robes -- she saw her American
dream for her four children, ages 7 to 12, who watched from the crowd.
"My kids have a big chance here," she said, referring to the United
States.
She pointed toward the stage. "Those men up there, maybe they can be one
of
them."
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