E-Mail This Article to a Friend Billionaires for Bush BY CAMILLE DODERO

MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2004, NEW YORK -- It's always a pleasant sight to see Billionaires for Bush on the street. Activists can sometimes be way too earnest, but these protestors are always good for a chuckle. Gathered in Union Square before the Still We Rise march on Monday, about 20 Billionaires stood in bowler hats, tuxedos, suits, ties, faux pearls, and prom dresses posing for photos, thanking pedestrians for paying wealthy people's taxes, and chanting "Four new wars! Four new wars!" A satirical left-wing protest group, they carry sardonic signs like FREE THE ENRON 7 and CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO. They're a joke, of course, and they're damn funny. Plus, they never break character, even when weaselly reporters beg for their real names.

They also know how to diffuse confrontations deftly. Like when a tank-topped man with "Mom" tattooed on his left shoulder (seriously) and bluish crosses inked on his right arm jeered at people gathering around 12:45 p.m. "The liberal left is dead. How can you kill babies?" he hollered. Somehow, an attack on gay marriage inexplicably led to an indictment of the left's courage. "You are a coward, that's all. Everybody in New York knows: the liberals are cowards."

Another Billionaires for Bush observer, this one with an anti-Bush shirt, actually bothers to engage him. "I'm not a coward. The Republicans are cowards. They settle disagreements with guns. I don't have a gun, I have a camera."

"You wouldn't know how to shoot a BB gun!" mocked Mr. Mom Tattoo.

"So guns are good," said the anti-Bush man. "And we should bomb countries?"

"How do you suppose we fight terrorism?" moans Mr. Mom Tattoo. "No, we don't fight back, right? We take it like a liberal, right? Up the ass?"

Iwanna Profit, a top-hatted Billionaire for Bush in a bowtie, sauntered over. Holding a sign reading LEAVE NO BILLIONAIRE BEHIND and gnawing on fake cigar, Profit sneered at the rowdy man. "You seem upset," she said in a theatrically haughty tone. "I'm looking to hire a gardener for my place in the Hamptons. Do you need a job?"

She's disgracing the country, he claimed.

She smiles. "What? You'd rather work inside? I need someone to empty the trash too."

He left. Immediately.