Delusions

By Michael Medved

The heavily-hyped anti-war protests in Washington at the end of September showed their detachment from reality in two ways. First, only the most delusional demonstrators could believe that President Bush would suddenly reconsider his Iraq policies after watching thousands of angry leftists surrounding the White House and calling him a Nazi mass murderer.

Second, how could the protestors make the case that the immediate withdrawal that they demand would make the U.S. in any way safer? By handing a gigantic victory to the most murderous, fanatical elements of fundamentalist Islam, U.S. abandonment of the new Iraqi regime would encourage terrorism while destroying all prospects for democracy.

Even congressional critics of the war recognize that an abrupt reversal of course at this point would damage American interests, but hysterical demonstrators hate Bush far more passionately than they love their country, and care more about expressing their rage than suggesting alternatives for U.S. policy.