I think I should say a bit more about the Gary Hart piece I plugged yesterday. What's interesting here isn't his skewering of the Bush administration or his lionization of Cindy Sheehan, but his diagnosis of what's wrong with the antiwar movement today:
where will the expanding majority of Americans look for a representative, a spokesperson, a voice for their anger, frustration, and distrust at being misled?
The circumstances suggest it should be a Senate or House Democratic leader, a recognized authority on foreign policy constantly seen on the Sunday talk shows, certainly one of the many “leaders” lining up to seek the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 2008.
Strangely, no one in any of those categories comes to mind. Their voices are silent.
He's right. And it's strange. For some reason, no William Fulbright has emerged, no George McGovern or Eugene McCarthy or RFK has stepped forward to focus the call for withdrawal. We've got this big rally, and most of America has joined, but there's not a goddamn soul on the stage. One could argue that Dean was on his way to leadership, but his campaign called for an expansion of the troop presence, his anti-war position was anti starting the war, not continuing it. In any case, he no longer has the sort of rhetorical freedom to make those comments, his leash has been tightened.
