Frank Rich ignores the fact Democrats are attacking Bush from the right.

[Karmadillo]

An interesting analysis from the WSWS. Who is representing the ever-growing numbers of Americans who oppose the war? I don't think one can credibly claim it is leading Democrats. If we want to stop this war, it's going to require all of us to become Cindy Sheehans where we are willing to sacrifice our imperial comfort and take to the streets. Expecting the two corporate financed parties to create the kind of America we want, the kind of world we want, is fatuous. They will simply create the kind of world the corporations want. Working together, we can do much, much better than that.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/rich-a16.shtml

Frank Rich of the New York Times is one of a handful of columnists for the major daily newspapers in the United States who exhibit intelligence and compassion. He makes no secret of his loathing for the war in Iraq—a sentiment entirely to his credit and rare in the media. And he recognizes that the Bush administration, with its combination of criminality and recklessness, represents something qualitatively new and troubling in American political life.

That being said, the limitations of Rich’s liberalism were all too clearly on display in the column published on Sunday under the headline, “Someone Tell the President the War Is Over.”

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One small difficulty stands in the way: it is Bush, not “the country,” who exercises the powers of commander-in-chief. Congress, not the American people, authorizes the tens of billions to finance the war. Neither the Bush administration nor the congressional Republican leadership has shown the slightest intention of getting out of Iraq.

As for the Democratic Party, the nominal “opposition,” it is a remarkable fact—one whose significance Rich ignores—that as the American people have turned against the war, leading Democrats have come forward to attack the Bush administration from the right, calling the existing troop levels inadequate and urging a significant expansion of the Army and Marines, the two forces tied down by the bloody guerrilla warfare in Iraq.

In other words, the established political structures in the United States, far from being responsive to public opinion, are increasingly committed to carrying out deeply unpopular and anti-democratic policies.

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[EST]

1. Recipe for "end times" end of the oil age battle.

Ain't gonna be fun.