WHEN IN DOUBT, SHOOT THE MESSENGER

The usual suspects on the right have been looking for ways to hack at the monstrous protest rallies that took place in DC, SF and elsewhere on the 18th. First they tried to spread underestimations of the crowd size, but that wasn't going to work the 2nd time around. Well, now what are they doing? They're going after A.N.S.W.E.R., the organization that set up the big rallies.

The most egregious abuser of such tactics, or at least the most consistent one, is our dear friend Sully. That's ok, I expect such tactics from idiotic scum like him. But Eric Alterman?

I'll get back to Alterman in a second, let me take care of Sullivan first:

A few readers have complained that by fixating on the extremes, I'm misrepresenting the marches. The trouble is: the extremes organized the march. Can you imagine if a massive gay rights rally has been organized by NAMBLA, the pedophile group? But NAMBLA is to gay rights what ANSWER is to legitimate anti-war sentiment. And no-one in the liberal establishment seems to care.

A ridiculous comparison. No matter what one thinks of the political views of some members of ANSWER, it's not friggin illegal to have such opinions. It is, however, illegal to fuck little boys. So we can go ahead and toss that comparison out as sensationalist nonsense. Getting that out of the way, Andy's beef is that "extremes organized the march". Well, yes, they did, I'll grant you that. But it's no accident that "extremists" just might be the ones who are most motivated to get large demonstrations together! And that doesn't matter! Why? Ask yourself these questions: Regardless of whatever esoteric stuff any one speaker might have said on saturday, do you think that ANSWER really had any of their peripheral goals in the forefront of their mind for saturday? And were their fringe causes bolstered by saturday in the minds of Americans reading the paper, watching TV, or even at the events? I'm gonna say probably not on all counts. Saturday was about two things: 1) Iraq, and 2) HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE gathered together to oppose an unwarranted, unnecessary war.

This is, of course, nothing new for the likes of Sully and other conservative bloggers and pundits. They take people like Chomsky, Gore Vidal, etc (ok i like them, but what are you gonna do, hehe), and say the represent the entire left-of-center population of the world. That's why we see Sully say

This is the face of the anti-war left.

We're on to you, shmuck.

Regarding Alterman, if you're keeping the center of the discussion on ANSWER's fringe issues, you're playing their game. Let's keep our eye on the ball.

Then again, it's frustrating to turn on MSNBC on saturday, and their poll question of the day is "Are the protesters unpatriotic?"