The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 8)

p> How dare you attack Lou Dobbs? Maybe you should be working for the Wall Street Journal . The WSJ writers are always sneaking in inflammatory statements like yours. br> -- Miffed /p>

About the demonstration described by Mr. Macomber:

Events such as the one described by Mr. Macomber cannot be understood by those who insist upon seeing them as matters that happen in a world based upon logic. In San Francisco, tar pit of America's political left, mass demonstrations are two parts political, five parts ecclesiastical, and three parts psychotherapeutic.

I once covered a "peace rally" staged in the plaza across from city hall, an event dedicated to preventing the first Gulf War. I heard a "representative of the Palestinians" squeal about imperialists, and then thank those of his "lavender brethren" who turned out to support him. I chatted with five people in silly clothing, painted faces and great big shoes, who carried a sign that said "Clowns for Peace." A man held captive in a huge sandwich-board wrapped in strands of barbed wire gave me a leaflet that said Richard Nixon was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and that he orchestrated the assassination of a president. A sign nailed to a tree gave the time and place of a three hour seminar on "How to Give Yourself a Face Lift with a Hand-Held Vibrator."

Representatives of all dozens of loony committees, alliances, associations, coalitions, leagues, guilds and networks were there, strutting their stuff, carrying semi-literate placards, and blathering their various creeds. They were united in a grand effort, not to convert the masses or to advance an agenda, but to piss off mom and dad. In order to make themselves believe they were not losers and alone in the world, they let the TV cameras make them look like an accumulation of rational adults speaking in a single voice, with a single sane objective, worthy of respect.

By mid-afternoon I'd had enough, so I caught a cab that dropped me at a corner where I could get a bus home. As I waited, a homeless man spread a huge American flag out on the sidewalk, then laid his bedroll down on it. As he settled in for the night, a platinum blond waif of indeterminate gender, in a black cocktail dress and earth shoes, sprayed obscene anti-war graffiti on the wall behind him. A few minutes after that, a second homeless man sat down on the flag, and fell in love with the first man; shortly thereafter, the two consummated their passion, right there on the sidewalk, wrapped in a flag. Children on their way home from school watched in cautious alarm.

Then, as if an answer to a prayer, a police car squealed to a stop. The driver bounded out, ignored the two bums in flagrante delicto, then ticketed two cars parked in the bus zone and drove away.

p>It's not a city. It's the weedy, seedy habitat of half a million waltzing white mice. And if the Democrats recapture Congress the harpy who represents these creatures will surely be Speaker of the House, and quite possibly the bottom of the next presidential ticket, should Hillary's efforts come to naught. Be afraid, be very afraid.

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