An environmental group that mistakenly rallied three blocks away from Vice President Dick Cheney's motorcade used the missed opportunity to call him a chicken who ducked the protesters.
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance had hoped the motorcade would travel past their protest site, but the limousine carrying Cheney, who was in town to speak at the Utah Republican Convention, left Salt Lake's Airport No. 2 near the National Guard Armory, missing the protesters by half a mile.
Cheney's route from the airport is the same one used by former President Bill Clinton during his two trips to Utah, as well as Vice President Al Gore when he visited the Beehive State.
Despite the activists' apparent mistake, SUWA distributed a news release chastising the vice president for changing his route in a conscious effort to avoid the rally.
"Vice President Dick Cheney slipped out the back way of the Salt Lake General Aviation airport this morning, cynically avoiding dozens of banner-waving, kazoo-playing wilderness activists who gathered there to greet him," the news release stated.
Utah Department of Public Safety spokesman Doug McCleve, however, said the route had been predetermined for days.
"We knew the route for the last several days. The route did not change," McCleve said. "I don't know where other people got their information."
When asked who told the protesters that Cheney would be traveling by their rally site, SUWA spokesman Mike Reberg said, "Nobody, we just picked the main entrance and figured he'd come out that way."
Still, Reberg insisted Cheney intentionally avoided them.
The group had asked for a face-to-face meeting with Cheney during his Utah trip but was told the vice president was too busy. Instead group members had hoped to deliver their message through the rally that drew more than 150 people.
"We think he did chicken out," Reberg said. "We gave him an opportunity to meet with us."
SUWA has taken issue with Cheney and President George W. Bush's energy policy. The environmental group says the plan makes it too easy for oil companies to gain leases on Utah's pristine southern public lands and then exploit the lands for oil and gas exploration.
E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com