Democrat's SHAME Cowardice and Subterfuge Highlight Olympic Torch Run Through SF Streets

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349030,00.html

Olympic Torch Concludes Hide and Seek Run Through San Francisco Streets

Thursday, April 10, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO - The Olympic torch played hide and seek with thousands of

demonstrators and spectators crowding the city's waterfront Wednesday before

being spirited away without even a formal goodbye on its symbolic stop in

the United States.

After its parade was rerouted and shortened to prevent disruptions by

massive crowds of anti-China protesters, the planned closing ceremony at the

waterfront was canceled and moved to San Francisco International Airport.

The flame was put directly on a plane and was not displayed.

The last-minute changes to the route and the site of the closing ceremony

were made amid security concerns following chaotic protests in London and

Paris of China's human rights record in Tibet and elsewhere, but they

effectively prevented many spectators who wanted to see the flame from

witnessing the historic moment.

As it made its way through the streets of San Francisco, the flame traveled

in switchbacks and left the crowds confused and waiting for a parade that

never arrived. Protesters also hurriedly changed plans and chased the

rerouted flame.

Mayor Gavin Newsom told The Associated Press that the well-choreographed

switch of the site of the closing ceremony was prompted by the size and

behavior of the crowds massing outside AT&T Park, where the opening ceremony

took place.

There was "a disproportionate concentration of people in and around the

start of the relay," he said in a phone interview while traveling in a

caravan that accompanied the torch.

International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge expressed relief

that the San Francisco relay avoided the turmoil at previous events.

"Fortunately, the situation was better ... in San Francisco," Rogge said at

an Olympic meeting in Beijing. "It was, however, not the joyous party that

we had wished it to be."

Less than an hour before the relay began, officials cut the original

six-mile route nearly in half.

Then, at the opening ceremony, the first torchbearer took the flame from a

lantern brought to the stage and held it aloft before running into a

waterfront warehouse. A motorcycle escort departed, but the torchbearer was

nowhere in sight.

Officials drove the Olympic torch about a mile inland and handed it off to

two runners away from protesters and media, and they began jogging toward

the Golden Gate Bridge, in the opposite direction of the crowds waiting for

it. More confusion followed, with the torch convoy apparently stopped near

the bridge before heading southward to the airport.

The plane carrying the torch took off from San Francisco International

Airport at 9:05 p.m. PDT Thursday, said airport duty manager Abubaker Azam.

As the flame traveled toward the airport, news dribbled through the crowds

of more than 10,000 spectators and protesters gathered at the waterfront

that the torch wasn't coming there.

Spectator Dave Dummer said he was disappointed.

"That upsets me," Dummer said. "My back hurts from standing around on this

lumpy sidewalk. ... This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and other

people messed it up by protesting."

Chinese state media declared the event a success, praising the last-minute

route changes as a clever strategy for thwarting "Tibetan separatists."

The activists "ran into a brick wall in San Francisco," the Global Times

newspaper, published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily, said

on its Web site. It called the changes a "brilliant idea."

"Today's relay was full of suspense and drama ... the whole story was like a

Hollywood movie," China News Service said, though it also called the San

Francisco leg a "harmonious journey."

Jiang Xiayou, executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic torch relay

committee, thanked San Francisco.

"Perhaps some of them failed to see the sacred flame today," Jiang said,

speaking through a translator at the closing ceremony. "But we all have felt

the passion of the Olympic movement."

There were signs of tension even before the torch relay began. Pro-Tibet and

pro-China groups were given side-by-side permits to demonstrate, and

representatives from both sides spilled from their sanctioned sites across a

major street and shouted at each other nose to nose, with no visible police

presence to separate them.

Farther along the planned route, about 200 Chinese college students mobbed a

car carrying two people waving Tibetan flags in front of the city's Pier 39

tourist destination. The students, who arrived by bus from the University of

California, Davis, banged drums and chanted "Go Olympics" in Chinese.

"I'm proud to be Chinese and I'm outraged because there are so many people

who are so ignorant they don't know Tibet is part of China," Yi Che said.

"It was and is and will forever be part of China."

The torch's 85,000-mile, 20-nation global journey is the longest in Olympic

history, and is meant to build excitement for the Beijing Games. But it has

also been targeted by activists angered over China's human rights record.

Hundreds of pro-China and pro-Tibet demonstrators blew whistles and waved

flags as they faced off near the site of the relay's opening ceremony.

Police struggled to keep the groups apart.

At least two protesters were cited for interfering with officers, but no

arrests were made, according to police spokesman Sgt. Neville Gittens.

Officers blocked public access to bridge leading to the ceremony site across

McCovey Cove from the ballpark.

One of the runners who planned to carry the torch dropped out earlier this

week because of safety concerns, officials said. The torchbearers competed

with people not only protesting China's grip on Tibet, but its human rights

record and support for the governments of Myanmar and Sudan.

Local officials say they support the diversity of viewpoints, but tightened

security following chaotic protests during the torch's stops in London and

Paris and a demonstration Monday in which activists hung banners from the

Golden Gate bridge.

Vans were deployed to haul away arrested protesters, and the FAA restricted

flights over the city to media helicopters, medical emergency carriers and

law enforcement aircraft. Law enforcement agencies erected metal barricades

and readied running shoes, bicycles and motorcycles for officers preparing

to shadow the runners.

Peter Ueberroth, chairman of the United States Olympic Committee, said the

U.S. had struck the right balance between preserving freedom of speech for

protesters, providing an exhilarating experience for the torchbearers, and

preventing a repeat of the chaotic demonstrations that accompanied the torch

in London and Paris.

"As close as anybody can do in a free society, so far its looking very

good," Ueberroth said. "Virtually anybody and everybody is being heard."

The Olympic flame began its worldwide trek from Ancient Olympia in Greece to

Beijing on March 24, and was the focus of protests right from the start.

Torchbearers in other cities have complained of aggressive behavior by

paramilitary police in blue track suits sent by Beijing to guard the Olympic

flame. Although there were no major problems reported in California, they

did make their presence felt.

At least one torchbearer decided to show her support for Tibetan

independence during her moment in the spotlight. After being passed the

Olympic flame, Majora Carter pulled out a small Tibetan flag that she had

hidden in her shirt sleeve.

"The Chinese security and cops were on me like white on rice, it was no

joke," said Carter, 41, who runs a nonprofit organization in New York. "They

pulled me out of the race, and then San Francisco police officers pushed me

back into the crowd on the side of the street."

San Francisco was chosen to host the relay in part because of its large

Chinese-American population.

In Beijing, International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge met with

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday to discuss preparations for the

games, and "a range of games topics were discussed," the IOC said.

Rogge is to give more details at a news conference Friday, when the IOC's

executive board is to discuss Friday whether to end the remaining

international legs of the relay after San Francisco because of widespread

protest. The torch is scheduled to travel to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and

then to a dozen other countries before arriving in China on May 4. The

Olympics begin Aug. 8.

Rogge has refrained from criticizing China, saying he prefers to engage in

"silent diplomacy" with the Chinese.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday on the VRT television network in his

native Belgium, Rogge warned that pushing China too hard on Tibet and human

rights would be counterproductive.

"If you know China, you know that mounting the barricades and using tough

language will have the opposite effect," he said. "China will close itself

off from the rest of the world, which, don't forget it, it has done for some

2,000 years."

Meanwhile Wednesday, the White House said anew that President Bush would

attend the Olympics, but left open the possibility that he would skip the

opening ceremonies. Asked whether Bush would go to that portion of the

games, White House press secretary Dana Perino demurred, citing the fluid

nature of a foreign trip schedule this far out and the many factors that go

into devising it.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the British leader will not

attend the opening ceremony. Brown's office said the decision was not aimed

at sending a message of protest to the Chinese government, that Olympics

Minister Tessa Jowell will represent the British government at the opening,

and that Brown would attend the closing ceremony.

London is hosting the 2012 Olympics and British officials were expected to

attend events throughout the games.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he is debating not attending the

opening ceremony as a protest of China's crackdown in Tibet.