Duh

Yesterday, there was an anti-war rally in New York, featuring Jesse Jackson, Cindy Sheehan and Susan Sarandon.

Here are some quotes from the story linked to above:

"This is what democracy looks like," said chief organiser Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of the anti-war lobby United for Peace and Justice.

"We are here to send a message to the White House and the Congress that we must end this war now, bring our troops home and also end the attack on our civil rights at home."

"Today we march, tomorrow we organise and in November we vote," Cagan told cheering supporters.

Police were out in force as the demonstration wound its way through lower Manhattan toward City Hall.

"Our sole aim is to facilitate the march," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

"We are not the fringe anymore. We are mainstream America," said Sheehan, who gained prominence when she camped outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch last year to demand a meeting with the US leader.

"To be anti-George Bush is to be pro-American," she said.

Another prominent participant in the march was Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who precipitated a national uproar in 1971 when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, the US military's account of activities during the Vietnam War, to The New York Times.

The release of the documents succeeded in substantially eroding public support for the war, and Ellsberg urged those in the Bush administration opposed to the current policy in Iraq to follow his example.

"My message is: Don't just resign. Leak," Ellsberg said. "I don't think George Bush is stupid. I think he's dangerous, and he has to be stopped."

So what are we to conclude?

- Democracy is authentic and legit only when the far left comes out on top.

- Americans' civil rights are being violated by the government, but the NYPD, paid for by the public purse, made sure that the protestors were able to freely express their opinion by "facilitating the march". (Not quite sure which civil rights were being violated yesterday.)

- If you break national security laws regarding confidentiality to make W. look bad, it's OK because that's being patriotic.

I'd say the number one thing that the anti-war movement needs is a PR strategy. They decide to have a march complete with signs like the one above in the same city that al-Qaeda attacked on 9/11 on the very same weekend that United 93 opened up?

And after feeding listeners a steady diet of pedantic and preachy breast-beating rhetoric by know-it-all professional protestors like those above, is it any wonder that Al Franken's left-wing Air America radio network is going down the tubes, even in liberal New York City?

And they think that only they, the anointed philosopher kings, are smart enough to be in charge.