Being Rude and Disruptive doesn’t Work, Ms. Sheehan

I painfully watched TV excerpts of Cindy Sheehan and her anti-Iraq war group's conduct yesterday at the House Democratic Party Leadership press conference and I could only think of the 1960s, during the best (and worst) days of the anti-Vietnam War movement. In those days, I and many other card-carrying liberals in the Democratic Party (of which I consider myself still a member) were trying to use the electoral process to end the Vietnam War. I was a follower and adherent of the philosophy of the godfather of the "Dump [Lyndon] Johnson" movement, Allard Lowenstein. Lowenstein insisted that if we really wanted to end the Vietnam War, as opposed to just venting ideological steam, we had to be willing to be "clean for Gene" -— i.e., cut our beards and hair, dress nicely, and knock on doors in New Hampshire to convince middle-class, often conservative people to agree with us on the tragedy of the Vietnam War and to vote for Senator Eugene McCarthy, who was opposing then-incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Vietnam War issue.

That meant we had to use the power of our words to persuade people we were right. And to talk to those who might not necessarily agree with us, and persuade them to change their minds, Lowenstein taught us that in politics that meant acting and dressing and talking civilly, and with respect. That is, he would say, if you really want to end the war.

And so I would say to Cindy Sheehan, whose loss of her son in Iraq is a monumental and inconsolable tragedy, and to all those bloggers on the left side of the spectrum whose vitriol and venomous attacks target not just pro-war Republicans but those liberal Democrats who may not agree 100 percent with their position on the Iraq war:

If you really want to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, then you need to make friends, not enemies, among those who are not 100 percent in agreement with you; you need to be civil and respectful of those who disagree with you; and especially, you need to support your friends and allies who are critical of the war, even if they don't agree with your call for immediate withdrawal.

That is, if you really want to change policy -— rather than venting anger and steam.

Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer should be your allies. To act the way you and your colleagues did yesterday is counterproductive and, in the final analysis, assists the very political forces supporting the war and, indeed, supporting the greater U.S. military presence in Iraq that you are dedicated to oppose.

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