Wandering out and down the driveway to get my Washington Post in the

morning can bring a sense of trepidation–especially right now as the

Post has begun a mini-campaign on making the Niger Sentence the center

of Campaign 2004. So I leaf through from the least offensive sections to

potentially the most, savoring a little Sports, then a quick flip

through Metro and Business, Style, and then the front section.

Saturday was one of those days where the Metro section lives up to its

Iraq war pattern of celebrating what they think is courageous “dissent.”

A D.C. motto for the hard left: if you hold a rally, the Washington Post

will come. Saturday’s Metro section features just the latest in a long

series of “anti-war” (pro-inaction) rallies, this one in the fussy

liberal boutique area of Dupont Circle. “At Open-Mic forum, a Yearning

to Open Minds,” reads the headline under a huge picture of a man

standing in front of huge black letters spelling PEACE. Reporter Manny

Fernandez explained the rally was “hosted by the D.C. Anti-War Network

and D.C. Statehood Green Party to repeal the USA Patriot Act and end the

U.S. occupation of Iraq.”

Soon enough, what the tabula rasa “open minds” of the headline are

supposed to accept is revealed: “D.C. activist Adam Eidinger said he

hoped the outlet opens people’s minds to progressive causes. ‘This is

free speech,’ said Eidinger, an organizer with the D.C. Statehood Green

Party. ‘You’ve got to have a discussion in this country to understand

why we want regime change.’” So far, I’m left waiting for an accurate

ideological classification of the events being promoted. “Progressive”

is a clue, although how leaving Saddam Hussein in power can be defended

as progress we could debate.

But in reality the truth is this: these people think Ted Kennedy is a

tool of the establishment. The website of the Washington Peace Center

explains if you scroll down far enough that the “open mic” for “open

minds” was followed by a dance party at the “Paul Robeson Study &

Struggle Center.”

Fernandez does eventually use the adjective “left-leaning activists” to

describe the assembled. It would be nice for reporters to use “leaning”

to describe someone who’s partially of the left, or a centrist

sympathetic to the left. Former Rep. Connie Morella, with a career ACU

rating in the 30s, is a good example. Once again, the assembled in

Dupont Circle think the legislators with zero ACU ratings are part of

the national security state. They are not “leaners” of the left – they

have broken beyond any confining parameters of leftism into a nihilist

Nirvana of decrying American “colonialism” in Iraq.

They are hard-core leftists, people who believe that everywhere America

goes, freedom vanishes and death and pollution and oppression arrive.

The Post usually describes this sort of ideologue in the most favorable

terms: a “peace activist.”