President Marks Flag Day at Vietnam War Memorial

President Bush visited the Vietnam War Memorial at daybreak today to watch one U.S. flag being lowered and another raised. “It was an appropriate way to observe Flag Day,” said spokesman Marlin Fitzwater.

Bush, who has been outspoken over the last few days in pressing for a constitutional amendment protecting the flag, did not speak at the brief ceremony and would not take questions from reporters.

The White House renewed its push this week for the flag protection amendment after the Supreme Court on Monday struck down the 1989 federal law against flag desecration.

Fitzwater later said no link was intended between Bush’s active lobbying for the flag protection amendment and his decision to visit the Vietnam Memorial to be photographed watching the flag being raised. (Photo, P12)

“He went to the memorial because he thought it was an appropriate place to commemorate Flag Day,” Fitzwater said.

He denied that the White House was seeking to politicize the issue.

But, on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats used Flag Day speeches to criticize the proposed amendment and Bush’s support for the change.

“We will be whimpering wimps if we are so afraid of protest that we damage the basic document of freedom,” Sen. Terry Sanford (D-N.C.) said.

Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), who won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, called the debate over the amendment “an attempt to divide America, to divide fathers against sons” that would reopen “the generation gap” of the 1960s.

He held up a photograph of Bush watching Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) while the Republican senator held up an American flag. “It’s a great loss when the President of the United States is doing this, pointing and laughing, laughing, using this moment, taking political advantage.”