The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

The antiwar movement should also be a cautionary tale for those taking part in the tea parties and other anti-spending rallies, which were bascially nonexistent during Bush's big spending, borrowing, and bailouts. The left used opposition to the Iraq war mainly as a recruiting tool for their various causes (while the respectable center-left and neo-left mostly supported the war until it became unpopular). It was, as York reports and Sheehan admits, mostly an anti-Bush, anti-Republican movement. For the tea partiers to have any real success fighting the growth of government, they have to be more than an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat movement.