The world can---and will---wait for 2008

A full-page ad in the New York Times last Friday is a nice illustration of anti-war hysteria from the left (http://worldcantwait.org/). Even allowing for some inevitable rhetorical excess, this latest call from the fringe left to impeach President Bush is over-the-top, even by fringe-left standards: "People look at all this and think of Hitler---and they are right to do so---The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come." 

Who writes this crap? In fact, who would even sign on to such a goofy analysis of the historical moment? Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly would---and have---signed on. The Bush-is-Hitler trope hasn't been seen much since the initial invasion of Iraq; it was nutty and offensive then, and it still is four years later.

"Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights." The war in Iraq is not illegitimate at all, since both Congress and the UN signed off on it before the invasion. Nor is it clear that the Bush Administration was lying when they said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They clearly believed it, and they weren't wrong to believe it. Whether it was sensible to invade Iraq, with or without WMD, is the question. The "other countries" is apparently a reference to Iran, and I've seen no evidence that the US is the least bit interested in invading that country.

What historical moment do these folks think we're living in? This sense of emergency had some justification three or four years ago, but not in 2007, when the American people have already turned against the war in Iraq, and the Democrats have taken over Congress. "This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us." Stop you from doing what? Stop you from saying what every liberal publication on and off the internet has been saying for years?

"The point is this: history is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious." What "tremendous odds"? An overwhelming majority of Americans already agree that the war in Iraq was/is a mistake. The "victory"---if that's what it is---has already been won politically on the home front. The only thing to be decided is exactly when US troops come home.

That Mirkarimi and Daly signed on to this fringe effort to impeach President Bush is still another reason to think that their chances of ever being elected to higher office are slim to non-existent. Some of the other notables who have signed on for The World Can't Wait: State Senator Carole Migden, cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sean Penn, the Hip Hop Caucus, Michael Lerner, Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Gore Vidal, Alice Walker, Wavy Gravy, and Richard Serra, perhaps the most over-rated artist in the country.