We already can see the usual suspects of protesting--people who are always anti-American and who care about the Iraq War only for the purpose of rounding up other people who will follow their banners. These loopy Lefties really do believe they can pull off that vanguard of the proletariat crap here.
So we know who led the march. Who attended? Luckily we have a source on the spot (tip to Instapundit, I think):
Realizing the gothic-looking group was more about fashion than follow-through, I left for home. I felt embarrassed for a movement to which I don’t even belong. Even the young anarchists could not escape the looming specter of the 1960s, which was reflected in many signs simply reading “SDS” -- an old '60s radical group that I thought had died out at the same time as eight-track tapes.
The sad scene on the Mall shows that the Left is incapable of parlaying the unpopularity of the Iraq War into a new, energetic anti-war movement. The ‘60s radicals are active, but the movement just can’t get traction without young people. A good many of the older folks, I suspect, are not even motivated by politics so much as by a desire to recapture their youth. They break out the old slogans and the old songs, but these ring hollow to a younger generation.
“Hey hey, Uncle Sam! We remember Vietnam!” chanted one former flower child from the stage. The problem is, the youth don’t remember Vietnam. The old radicals are thus trying to entice the young into a movement that revolves around the sacred memory of events in which today’s young people played no part. The youth are essentially being asked to become second-class citizens in this movement, having to bow to the superior wisdom of those who fought the reactionary opposition back when it really mattered.
Sadly for the Vanguard, they seem only to have attracted 1960s retreads who just came to Washington for that Vietnam Experience Tour. Iraq isn't Vietnam but with fading eyesight, some new tie dye wear, and a couple hits from that old bong, you can almost pretend that Jane Fonda looks as fetching as she did in Barbarella. Man, those were the days.
How sad is the anti-war movement? For all the unhappiness over the war as registered in polls, how much is really anti-stalemate rather than anti-war? I mean, the organizers basically rounded up their own membership of anti-globalists and pro-North Korean groups and managed to attract Jane Fonda and a bunch of other ancient protesters from about forty years ago!
OK, I've been on a rant about the Left lately. They affect me that way. Ultimately, my reaction is partly a reaction to the failure of the President to rally the country for war. Given the pathetic pedigree of the anti-war movement, they should be easy targets for an administration that remains on-message to impress upon the American people the stakes of winning, or progress, the enemies we've yet to defeat, and our determination to win this war and continue killing our enemies wherever we find them. Speeches here and there aren't enough. It has to be every day. Every damn day somebody high up in the administration should be speaking to an audience somewhere about the war and how we will win.
Let me get back to my usual programming. The President should be the one taking on those losers who mill about on the Mall. Will he? At long last?
