A family skirmish pits me as a "grouchy uncle" to my Berkeley educated but otherwise adored niece. As an acerbic avuncular presence, I have been forced to defend the rights of the protesters although I have little respect for many of their positions.
I have complained of their reflexive hatred for this administration and this country, the Iraqi exiles who appear almost universally in opposition, and the Communist ties of the protest organizers.
James Glassman captures it all in a great column, "Stalin Would Be Proud."
"To protest this war is a valid exercise of the right of free speech. No one argues with that. Protesters, however, have moral obligations, too, and one of them is to treat their opponents with dignity and honesty and to refuse to lend even tacit support for backers of vile communist dictatorships. In addition, all Americans - even those in the press - have the obligation to condemn the kind of disgusting slurs that so many of these marchers, and others, have been hurling."