Friday, January 26, 2007
'A traditional antiwar protest'?
What's a 'traditional antiwar protest'? I know what they mean. But it's still a kind of funny way to refer to past rallies organized by the usual lefty suspects. ... Glad to see organizers of this weekend's planned Washington rally are trying to make it non-traditional, for lack of other words, i.e. they're giving the boot to 'far left' activists. Not that the media ever identified those 'far left' leanings at past rallies, covering protests without giving a hint that they might have been organized by 'far left' types like ANSWER. ...
... With all the justified cynicism aside, I'm kind of rooting that the weekend rally indeed sends a message to the administration and Congress: This war has been grossly mismanaged and time is running out. That may not be the message of some, or most, protesters. But it's the centrist message I'd like to see conveyed. The Bush administration shunned, denounced and dismissed advice from moderates in the run-up to the Iraq war. Now they're dealing with a mess of their own making. The supreme irony is that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both holdovers from the Nixon-Ford era, were bitterly determined to show they could run a non-Vietnam-like war. Now they have a growing Vietnam-like opposition because they didn't anticipate a Vietnam-like war, i.e. an insurgency, mixed with murderous civil strife. ... In advance, I'd like to distance myself from the anti-Israel, Bush is Hitler types who will inevitably show up this weekend to get their protest merit badges. But hopefully their numbers will be small. The real 'traditional' protesters are organizing their own separate rally for March 17. Maybe the national media, for a change, will note their 'far left' leanings instead of just calling them 'peace activists.' ...
What's a 'traditional antiwar protest'? I know what they mean. But it's still a kind of funny way to refer to past rallies organized by the usual lefty suspects. ... Glad to see organizers of this weekend's planned Washington rally are trying to make it non-traditional, for lack of other words, i.e. they're giving the boot to 'far left' activists. Not that the media ever identified those 'far left' leanings at past rallies, covering protests without giving a hint that they might have been organized by 'far left' types like ANSWER. ...
... With all the justified cynicism aside, I'm kind of rooting that the weekend rally indeed sends a message to the administration and Congress: This war has been grossly mismanaged and time is running out. That may not be the message of some, or most, protesters. But it's the centrist message I'd like to see conveyed. The Bush administration shunned, denounced and dismissed advice from moderates in the run-up to the Iraq war. Now they're dealing with a mess of their own making. The supreme irony is that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both holdovers from the Nixon-Ford era, were bitterly determined to show they could run a non-Vietnam-like war. Now they have a growing Vietnam-like opposition because they didn't anticipate a Vietnam-like war, i.e. an insurgency, mixed with murderous civil strife. ... In advance, I'd like to distance myself from the anti-Israel, Bush is Hitler types who will inevitably show up this weekend to get their protest merit badges. But hopefully their numbers will be small. The real 'traditional' protesters are organizing their own separate rally for March 17. Maybe the national media, for a change, will note their 'far left' leanings instead of just calling them 'peace activists.' ...
