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--> --> White House moves message south; Portland cleans up from protests PORTLAND (AP) - President Bush left Oregon this morning for California after a whirlwind visit that included a tour of a still-smoldering wildfire and speeches in which he argued that more logging in national forests would prevent devastating blazes. Angry activists responded to his proposal on Thursday with hours of protests in downtown Portland. "I went up on a mountain today in the midst of a burn to talk about how to best prevent those burns from happening in the first place," Bush said at a Thursday evening fund-raiser for the re-election campaign of U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith. "Instead of allowing the kindling to build up, why don't we thin the forests?" Bush said. The president proposed to end the government's "hands-off" policy in national forests and make it easier for timber companies to remove wood from 190 million acres of the most highly fire-prone forests. But environmentalists objected to the president's forestry plan, saying it would open forests to loggers run amok. Arriving Thursday afternoon in downtown Portland, Bush was greeted by several hundred hooting and screaming protesters - many angry about his new forest initiative, as well as other causes such as possible military action against Iraq. Riot police fired pepper spray at protesters and struck them with batons outside the hotel where Bush was attending the fund-raising event for Smith. Protests started in early afternoon and lasted into the night - resulting in at least five arrests. Earlier Thursday, Bush toured the Squires Peak fire in southern Oregon. Then he traveled to a fairgrounds barn in Central Point, where he formally proposed a new fire prevention initiative that would include more forest thinning and streamlining the process used to appeal controversial timber sales. Environmentalists accused Bush of using this year's especially bad fire season as an excuse to make more federally grown wood available to timber companies. "This looks like corporate accountability in reverse," said Marty Hayden of Earthjustice. "Apparently the president's intention is to waive our environmental laws, lock out the public and hand the timber industry the key to the realm." Paul Shively, Northwest regional representative for the Sierra Club, said he was most concerned about Bush's reference to eliminating the "red tape" around logging and streamlining the appeals process. "We think that equates, in his mind, to closing off the public from appealing bad timber sales that do nothing to protect communities from forest fire but benefit the timber interests," he said. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Forest Subcommittee, said he supports elements of Bush's proposal, but would not support attempts to change the appeals process. He stressed that the policy must remain focused on fire prevention, and not on making it easier to log old-growth forests. "At this point, I've heard some concepts that are interesting and some concepts that are promising. I've got to see the details and specifics," said Wyden. Gov. John Kitzhaber agreed with Wyden, saying that thinning forests was an important part of fire prevention, but cautioning against removing public debate from the logging process. "There's no question we should try to reduce the time frames involved, but you can't remove the public from policy decisions on public forest lands," said Kitzhaber, who met with Bush for about 20 minutes Thursday. Bush rounded out his appearances in Oregon - a state he barely lost to Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election - with a fund-raising roundtable and dinner in Portland. Bush raised $1 million for the re-election campaign of U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith and the Oregon GOP. It apparently was the largest single fund-raising event in Oregon history and further expanded Smith's 5-to-1 lead over Democratic challenger Bill Bradbury in campaign money race to date. "You got a good, honorable, decent man in Gordon Smith," Bush told the boisterous crowd that gathered in a downtown hotel for hors d'oeuvres, entertainment by a three-piece band and a glimpse of the president. Later, Bush took a few minutes for a private and emotional meeting with Bruce and Patty Bertrand, whose son, Bryan, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, was killed Jan. 9 in Pakistan. "It was amazing," Patty Bertrand said after talking to the president. "He had tears rolling down his cheeks. It showed how much he honored what our son had done." On Friday, Bush left for California to headline three events expected to give Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon's campaign a much-needed $3 million boost. Email your... 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