 | But there will be plenty of bottomfeeders. Hat tip to Charles at LGF. |
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - As the anti-war movement arrives in Washington this weekend, many top Democrats are leaving. Nationally known Democratic war critics, including Howlin' Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Sens. Hildebeast Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Frickin' Kerry of Massachusetts, won't attend what sponsors hope say will be a big anti-war rally Saturday in Washington. The only Democratic officeholders who plan to address the rally are Reps. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia and John Conyers of Michigan.
| Time to warm up the TiVo! |
Today's poll-driven leading Democrats head a party divided not really over the war, and many leaders are scared shitless wary of standing with anti-war activists, who represent much of the party's looney base. The divide between anti-war activists and Democratic leaders underscores a challenge the party faces in the 2006 congressional elections and beyond. Some activists say that Democrats such as Clinton and Kerry who criticize the war but refuse to demand a timetable for withdrawal are effectively supporting the status quo - and may not merit future support.
| Yeah, you guys pull the rug from under the Hildebeast. I dare you. I double-dare you. |
En route to Washington for the rally, anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan protested outside Clinton's New York office. "She knows that the war is a lie, but she is waiting for the right time to say it," Sheehan told about 500 cheering supporters. "You say it or you are losing your job."
| Oh please, oh please, oh please ... |
Spokesmen for the Democrats who are skipping the anti-war event all said they had pressing unavoidable schedule conflicts no, honest, really!. But some leading anti-war activists aren't buying it and neither am I. "There are a lot of people here who are wondering, where are the Democrats?" said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic House member from Maine who's now the national director of Win Without War, one of several neo-Stalinist groups that are organizing three days of protests against the war in Washington starting Saturday. "The Democratic Party has an identity crisis on this issue. We need voices. We need leadership," Andrews said. "But fear is driving them."
| The fear that they might get voted out by citizens who see through them? That fear? |
The rally comes at a time when a growing number of Americans want a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, a proposition that both President Bush and many leading Democrats correctly reject. Dean, who rallied anti-war activists with his fervent opposition to the war during his 2003-2004 presidential campaign, already was scheduled to spend the weekend meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, spokesman Josh Earnest said. "His views on the president's handling of the war in Iraq are well documented," Earnest said. The anti-war rally, he said, is "not something the party was involved with."
| "I know nothing! Tell them, Hogan!" |
Kerry planned to be in his home state this weekend, a spokeswoman said. Clinton also didn't plan to attend, a spokesman said. "Our job is to make them pay a price for continuing to support this war," said Bill Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, another hard-left group that's organizing the anti-war weekend in Washington. Sixty-six members of Congress have formed an "Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus" that wants either immediate withdrawal or a timetable to withdraw. None of the party's congressional leadership and none of the likely candidates for president are members.
| They're not as looney as the caucus, it seems. |
Anti-war organizers said they pray for expected 100,000 people Saturday. A rival group plans a rally Sunday in Washington to show support for the war. |