THE POLITICS OF THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT

If you go to the RealClearPolitics website, you will find links to a pair of commentaries by two very different kinds of conservatives who share a vision of the impact of the anti-war movement on the Democratic Party.

Pat Buchanan and David Frum have it exactly right. Buchanan says;

The reason Democrats must worry most today is that the antiwar movement taking shape is virulently anti-Bush; it is lodged, by and large, inside their party; it is passionate and intolerant; it has given new life to the Howard Deaniacs who went missing after the Iowa caucuses; and it will turn on any leader who does not voice its convictions.

Cindy Sheehan has sympathizers in Middle America, but to the Left she is "Mother Sheehan."
Consider Hillary's predicament. Today, she is taking the same cautious position on Iraq that Richard Nixon took in the fall of 1968 on Vietnam. She is saying she supports the war and the troops, but the war has been mismanaged and America needs new leadership.

No risk there. Hillary's problem is she is three years away from 2008, the antiwar movement increasingly looks on her as a collaborator in "Bush's War," and Democrats like Feingold are going to give these antiwar militants the rhetoric and stances they demand. Hillary's most rabid followers will depart if she does not leave Bush's side -- to lead them.

This surging antiwar movement will not permit moderates to get away with a stay-the-course, we-support-the-troops position. They will demand a timetable for withdrawal and rally to the candidate who offers one, just as antiwar Democrats rallied to Gene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern in 1968.

The Democrats' dilemma is hellish. If this war ends successfully, Republicans get the credit. If it ends badly, Bush will be gone, but antiwar Democrats will be blamed for having cut and run, for losing the war and for the disastrous consequences in the Persian Gulf and Arab world.

Frum says;

But make no mistake: Americans are unhappy about the war in Iraq because they fear they are losing--not because they think the war wrong or immoral. Americans do not blame “American imperialism” for the problems of the Middle East. They know that Islamic terrorism threatens their country and favor strong measures to crush terrorism.

The so-called peace movement that has been drawing so much attention with its media stunts at the Bush ranch this summer thinks very differently. It opposed the Afghan war and now opposes the Iraq war because it opposes any and all American wars, successful or unsuccessful. It denies the reality of terrorism--or else thinks terrorism an unfortunate but understandable response to American aggression.

Here for example is Cindy Sheehan’s explanation of the war in Iraq. Sheehan of course is the summer’s media sensation, the mother of a Marine killed in Iraq who kept a vigil at President Bush’s Crawford ranch until the end of last week:

“Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation and this world were betrayed by George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agendas after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy … not for the real reason, because the Arab Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy.”

[PNAC is the acronym for the "Project for the New American Century"--a three person think tank in Washington DC that fills a large place in the imaginations of America's left-wing.]

Those words come from an email Sheehan sent on March 15 to the producers of the ABC News program, “Nightline.” Sheehan has since claimed that these words were inserted into her letter by a supporter, but this claim has been exposed as false by the journalist Christopher Hitchens in the online magazine Slate. But Sheehan’s excuse is if anything even more revealing than the truth. It is indeed the case that the antiwar movement is heavily populated by people who regard the whole 9/11 war as a Jewish plot.

The more Americans see of the antiwar movement, the more appalled they will be.

Just this past week on WBZ I received one anti-war call who said the insurgents were "freedom fighters" and another who said 9/11 was an Israeli operation. These people are at the core of the anti-war movement. They will demand that their candidate (whoever that might be) win the Democratic nomination in 2008. When he (or she) does not, they will withhold their support in November, and the hawkish Republican will win, just like 1968.