Demos, the President and the War
Bookworm at Bookworm Room on Aug 10 2006 at 3:45 pm | Filed under: Feature Article, View from the Left
I always assumed that the Left’s hostility to any efforts in the war against terrorists (”can’t we all get along?”) was a byproduct of Bush Derangement Syndrome, a la Groucho Marx’s “Whatever you’re for, I’m against it.” Ann Coulter, however, sees Ned Lamont’s election as proof of the opposite:
As some of us have been trying to tell you, Democrats don’t oppose the war on terrorism because they hate Bush: They hate Bush because he is fighting the war on terrorism.
I’m not so sure, although it does seem as if the peace movement, one that exists in a fantasy land where terrorists don’t plan to blow planes out of the sky just to make a point, is no longer simply a reflexive anti-Bush syndrome. That is, to the extent BDS preceded 9/11, I still think that BDS was the driving force behind the anti-War movement. However, many things, regardless of their origin, eventually have lives of their own, and that’s what we’re seeing here. Hating Bush is no longer a necessary requirement for the anti-War movement. The new anti-War movement is more dangerous for the Republicans, because it’s big enough to have an intellectual reach beyond “I hate Bush.”
terrorists, Bush, Groucho Marx, Ann Coulter, Democrats, anti-War, Republicans
