WASHINGTON — Peace activists in the nation's capital met for weeks last fall, brainstorming how they'd demonstrate their opposition at the inauguration of John McCain as president.
Then Barack Obama won the election.
What's a liberal protester to do?
"It was a happy dilemma," said Barbra Bearden, spokeswoman for Peace Action, which is affiliated with the Activist Coalition of D.C.
Washington is a town of protests, and not a week goes by, it seems, that a group isn't in front of the U.S. Capitol with bullhorns and signs calling for better education, or cheaper health care, or the beginning of peace, or an end to abortion.
With Obama's election, however, liberal organizations that have spent eight years blocking streets now find themselves working to change their message for this inauguration.
"We're not doing a protest," Bearden said. "We're working on having a progressive presence."
That means no chanting and no blocking the city streets as she and others did last year at an event marking the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.
Instead, the coalition plans on having a community teach-in at Meridian Hill Park, which is some distance from Pennsylvania Avenue. A few blocks from the White House at McPherson Square, they'll ask visitors to sign a "No Soldier Left Behind" petition.
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Foreign leaders not invited to Obama inauguration
The State Department last week informed all foreign embassies in Washington that, in keeping with past practice, their ambassadors and spouses can come to the event to represent their countries. Officials from their capitals, however, must stay home.
"These invitations are only for the chiefs of diplomatic missions and their spouses and are not transferable," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrote in a diplomatic note sent to the embassies on Jan. 6.
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