Bill

Once again you single out a few extremeists and use they to try to slander the entire anti war, anti Bush movement.

It would be like me pointing to the

Westboro Baptist Church as an example of how all people opposed to gay marriage think and feel. Bill - as a Christian who supports a ban on Gay marriage do you agree with the Westoboro Baptist Church? I know you do not...

So this is just to illustrate that using the rhetoric of extrmemists to charaterize people you don't agree with is low.

I know you will argue that you are only talking about the "Extreme Left" - but your language in this posting pretty much says that this is what "the anti-war/anti-Bush movement is all about." You should be more careful.

I know that you know many Democrats, liberals and other people who don't like President Bush - are they like the people you depict here?

If not, what is your point?

The piece makes it clear that this photo essay is about the extreme Left of the anti-war/anti-Bush movement, not all folks who are anti-war and against Bush.

Nowhere in the piece do I mention "Democrats" or "liberals."

This focus is solely on the extremists who, weirdly, call Bush "Hitler" but also support the terrorists who are aiming to exterminate the Jews.

Frankly, Bill, it's not your job to let the extremist fringe taint the entire left that inhabits this country. If the left are concerned about their extremists, its their job to reign them in. Any inference drawn by an outsider about the influence of the "fringe" on the rest of the left is fair game.

Bill didn't "let" the extremist fringe "taint" the entire left that inhabits this country. The left, by NOT disavowing their extremists, taint THEMSELVES. Whenever the subject comes up, I disavow freaks like that guy that runs godhatesfags.com or the racist militia yahoos in Michigan and elsewhere. I never see the left do likewise with *their* retarded stepchildren.

well said, Dan.

the Left has no responsibility for their own and they like it that way. plausible deniability - they won't deny them and they won't act against them - in other words they support this kind of rhetoric and demonstration.

"the Left has no responsibility for their own and they like it that way"

I would argue that what we're really seeing is that the Left is much more disorganized than the Right. Over the past few decades, the Right's message has become more streamlined and uniform. It has more coherency and is supported by many groups that are highly vocal in their respective media.

By contrast, the Left is not nearly as coherent. It is more easily seen as an amalgam of ideologies and movements that sometimes directly contradict one another. It has not been able to identify itself in the same way that the Right has. Instead, the Right has been (somewhat successfully) trying to identify what the Left stands for.

"I never see the left do likewise with *their* retarded stepchildren."

I know this is a weak refutation, but: Maybe you just aren't hearing them. There are so many news articles and stories out there and the media gets to select what it covers (to an extent), so maybe you just haven't heard them or don't remember reading them. Just because you haven't heard anything doesn't mean that nothing is being said.

Yea - I agree with Bolo...

The "Left" is not really a coherant ideological movement. I mean, who speaks for "The Left?"

Now "The Right" is not exactly 100% coherant either - but it does seem much more centralized in many ways.

The trouble with "The Left" is that we are strugling to organize ourselves around core ideas. Having accomplished a lot of what it set out to do during the 1960's and 70s, the Baby Boomer Left kind of lost direction....

Conservatives have principles that they agree on and they are much more organized than we are at this point.

However, President Bush has been so abhorant to many of us that the organization process has started. Liberals are starting to mesh again... It's sort of like what Bill Clinton did for you all during the 1990s... For the first time since Viet Nam, we (liberals) all agree on something - that we don't want President Bush...

But only some of us burn tires....

Interesting thing, "a" dredged up ol' Fred Phelps of "godhatesfags" notoriety. Betcha he didn't know that Fred ran for Congress as a Democrat back in the 60's.

Let me be perfectly clear - I'm not saying that "the Left" or "Liberals" are all a bunch of tire burning malcontents and hypocrites - that's a's strawman, not mine. But I do find it interesting to note the sheer numbers of tire burning malcontents and hypocrites that seem to find their home there on the Left, among the Liberals, and the validation they get from erstwhile mainstream figures like Al Gore, George Soros, Ted Kennedy and even John Kerry. Only a few of you might be burning tires "a", but there's a whole lot more warming themselves by the fire.

"Once again you single out a few extremeists and use they to try to slander the entire anti war, anti Bush movement."

Yeah, but you ever notice that every time someone tries to slander the movement like that, they find more extremists to single out than the last time?

---The trouble with "The Left" is that we are strugling to organize ourselves around core ideas.----

Ahhh, now that would be the problem. When the Right supposedly "organized" during Clinton they did so around concepts, not around the hate of Clinton. How many times do you remember hearing the words "the rule of law" and other ideas that to the very core are democratic (small d, ) more than they are partisan? Clinton was useful but he wasn't the Big Idea.

In contrast the Left appears to be trying to organize around disdain for an individual, but the leadership can't seem to define it in uncomplicated verbiage for the masses to parrot. Even my well spoken, well read liberal friends cannot articulate in simple terms what it is they dislike so much about Bush. Trust me on this: If you want to win an election you have to do it with simple, succinct verbiage that communicates the big ideas and resonates across political lines. Hate is not a big idea and it doesn't resonate well.

Oh, the left is now trying to get the simplest soundbite possible out there: incompetent.

Think I'm joking? We've had Gore, Pelosi, and Kerry all use the word within the last couple of weeks. Put "bush incompetent" into the news.google.com search and check it out.

So, that's their soundbite. I don't think too many non-lefties are buying it, but they often seem to be content just whipping their friends up into a frenzy with such language.

Yes Maynard -

Of course Phelps ran as a Democrat BEFORE Nixon implemented his "Southern Strategy" which began the process of moving ideological conservatives away from the Democrtic party. As well all know, Strom Thurmond was also once a Democrat... but he ended up as a Republican.

I think we can all agree that, whatever party Phelps belongs to now, he is a conservative and not a liberal.

Correct?

No. He's a loon.

So let me see if I can follow your reasoning here - Nixon's implementation of the "Southern Strategy" lured ideological conservatives like Phelps away from the Democratic party to the Republican Party - case in point Strom Thurmond - and hence he is now a conservative and not a liberal, right?

I think we can all agree that, whatever party Phelps belongs to now, he is a conservative and not a liberal.

You think wrong. First of all Phelps ran as a Democrat in '65, three years before Nixon ran for President. Second of all Phelps isn't a conservative or a liberal - he's a total nutjob. Hell, he lives in the middle of downtown nutjob central at the corner of Raving Moonbat and Rall.

BTW, the Strom thing - nice non-sequitor. Sure, Strom was a segregationist who converted from Democrat to Republican. Funny thing though - once he became a Republican he started renouncing segregation and encouraging racial integration, yet as a Democrat he was a racist and segregationist. Meanwhile Sen. Robert Byrd, Democrat, was an active member and recruiter for the KKK...Hmmm. Makes ya' think, don't it?

What this tells me "a" is that:
A) You failed to address my larger point, that while not all the Left and Liberals are burning tires at the barricades a sizeable number are warming themselves by the fire (thus giving tacit approval to their extremists associates), and B) In avoiding my central point you tried to smear conservatives as racists and hatemongers and yet C) you still managed to get the facts wrong which leads me to deduce that D) You are in fact a dyed in the wool Liberal.

Bill, the last 2 links just show up on my browser as html, which has never happened with any other blog or any other post on your blog. I can't access the photos or moviews. Can you fix please? I really want to pass this on to a lot of people.

Same problem Yehudit noted: all your pic files of the protest came up as html text rather than as a page; couldn't view any pics. Your links for the pics don't have .html or .htm suffixes, if that helps.

a:

Fred Phelps protested my law school graduation (University of Kansas), as he does every year. I don't remember seeing anyone with the stature such as Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Julia Stiles, Al Gore, Al Franken or the like in the crowd to support ole Freddy-boy. Thats something you only tend to see with the extreme Left.

And, as my employer is lucky to recieve (unwantedly) the weekly missive from Fred via fax I can say that Fred is not a fan of G.W. Bush. So placing the label of conservative upon him is slightly mis-leading. He does lean to right, but so far right that he is outta the conservative ballpark.