Cindy Sheehan

Those opposed to the current administration have at long last gotten their hands on a sizable store of political capital. And what do Ms. Sheehan and her ilk suggest that capital be spent upon? Making loud but impotent gestures and forming circular firing squads.  read more »

Jennifer Siegel in The Forward has been doing excellent reporting on the extent to which Republicans are fighting the Democratic Party for Jewish votes by questioning the Dems' support for Israel. This theme is alive in our partisan politics right now: Joe Lieberman left the Democrats in part because of the issue and now questions whether Ned Lamont is "strong" on Israel. Bill Clinton's recent appeal to Democratic dollars conspicuously says nothing about Iraq, as I reported the other day. Siegel says that the Republicans are using Cindy Sheehan and Jimmy Carter's images to tar the Democrats among Jews. I.e., being against the war and for an equitable peace in the Middle East are not in Jewish voters' interests.

This trend is fascinating for a few reasons. A, It is further evidence that the body of Jewish opinion is shifting to the right politically. I think this is partly a class issue. Jews are, overwhelmingly, privileged; and privilege tends to vote right. B, It suggests that, imshallah, the Israel issue may at last openly enter American politics, outside the pages of the Sun and the Forward and NYLRB, and Americans may get to choose; C, It is implicitly a gauntlet to Jewish Dems that being for stem cell research and abortion can no longer define the alpha and omega of the barricades of progressive politics, and D, therefore represents yet another challenge to the progressive tradition within U.S. Jewish life, symbolized by Schwerner and Goodman, to wake up and face the regressive policies they are tacitly endorsing in the Middle East.

Or, as (the sometimes-great) Leonard Fein writes in the Forward, dismissing the Israeli right: "History has tricked Arabs and Jews, in Israel and across its nebulous boundaries, into cohabitation. That, for better or worse, is their common destiny." Amen. There really isn't that much distance between Fein's view and Tony Judt's.

Jonathan Tasini pulled out the Cindy Sheehan card, using the anti-war mom to record a new radio for his campaign.

"My son was killed in this immoral war. New Yorkers deserve a debate about Hillary Clinton's role in supporting the war and occupation. She should stop dodging the Democratic debate."

I wonder if Sheehan's anti-war message is as effective as Rep. John Murtha's?  read more »

The 30-second Sheehan ad is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

Tomorrow is the day everyone has been waiting for: the beginning of petitioning season! Jonathan Tasini kicks off petitioning with Cindy Sheehan in Union Square at 8:30 am. Sean Patrick Maloney kicks off his petition drive for Attorney General in Chelsea at 8 am. Charlie King will petition for Attorney General in Grand Central Station at 2 pm. Tom Suozzi will petition in Queens and Brooklyn, pausing to hold a press conference "exposing Eliot Spitzer's hypocrisy in enforcing the law" at the McManus Democratic Association in Manhattan.

Christine Quinn and George McGovern will unveil a plan to increase enrollment in the school breakfast program at City Hall.

—Nicole Brydson

The New York Sun reports that Weld is likely to pick up the Libertarian party nomination at its Albany convention this weekend.

This befuddles our rather unsophisticated understanding of third-party mechanics in New York State.

What does Weld get out of it, besides an association that can become a campaign issue?

Mr. Weld rejects one of the party's main tenets, the legalization of drugs. The Libertarian Party's candidate in 2002 was Scott Jeffrey, who ran on a platform of legalizing marijuana and won 5,000 votes. A large fraction of New York's Libertarians are also firmly opposed to the war in Iraq. The party put out a press release six months ago calling for a withdrawal of American troops and urging anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan to run against Senator Clinton.

"You're not going to be lockstep on every single issue," a spokeswoman for Mr. Weld's campaign, Andrea Tantaros, said.

Amen, sister.

Meanwhile, the GOP runs the very real risk of being stuck with these guys for the next four elections.

Libertarian lever-pullers surely don't make up for losing the conservative line, do they?

Can you help us on this one?

- Tom McGeveran

War? Huh?  read more »

Well, that challenge to Hillary from the left has materialized. Cindy Sheehan said "no," but she's endorsed one Jonathan Tasini, a labor guy whose name will be familiar to freelance journalists and New York Times lawyers* and not many other people.

His challenge is based first on the charge that Hillary "has been one of the leading proponants of the war," he said in an interview this morning, and secondarily on economic issues like Nafta.

In a statement on Tasini's Web site, Sheehan describes Clinton as "a candidate who advocates for continued killing on the basis of flimsy reasoning."

Tasini's challenge -- along with running threats over at DailyKos to primary Joe Lieberman -- represent the Web-organized, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party putting its electoral money where its much-hyped mouth is. Here, Tasini faces a real logistical challenge, first of all, in even getting on the ballot, needing 15,000 signatures scattered across half the state's counties.

"If there's a base of [financial and volunteer] support within about 30 to 60 days, I think this campaign has legs and is going to get off the ground," he said. "This may not touch an nerve and then we're not going to be able to do it. We'll see."

He also mentioned that the activist group Code Pink plans to begin regular protests at Clinton events.  read more »

Some will speculate that this sort of thing is just what Hillary needs for her national image, and it's hard to imagine the campaign -- from, incidentally, some of the folks who brought us Norman Siegel this time around -- will do a whole lot of electoral damage. But who knows where the politics of the war will be when she hits New Hampshire two years from now.

*Tasini was the plaintiff in a case freelancers brought,and won, against the New York Times for the use of their work outside the print paper. Which means his campaign will put the Times, and perhaps freelancers who benefited from the settlement, deep in disclaimer-land when they write about him.

After Mike's less-than-totally-clear position on the Iraq war emerged more clearly as a campaign issue yesterday, a Bloomberg aide emailed over some remarks of his from August which, while still not totally clear, give a somewhat fuller picture of what he thinks.

He doesn't, exactly, say this, but as I read the remarks he's in the same camp as many others: Backed the war, now thinks it was a mistake, doesn't want to cut and run. Which puts him, incidentally, to the left of New York's two Senators.

But he's avoided any deliberate break with the White House on the issue.

If you read the transcript below, there is one interesting little break with Bush. Asked if the administration was lying, he doesn't defend the President, but instead says "I don't have any idea."

Anyway, on August 29, the day after he'd gotten into trouble by appearin to say, in response to a question about Cindy Sheehan, that the war isn't a local issue, he said:

"I haven't been reticent to say what I believe. I think everybody has very mixed emotions about the war that was started to find weapons of mass destruction and then they were not found. ...

"I - it's not a question of supporting the president, it is supporting our troops. They are there and I said, our national leaders have to find a way, and hopefully they are working as hard as they can, to bring our troops home. At the same time, trying to get another democracy in a foreign country, trying to stabilize a part of the world where there has been terrible atrocities taking place over many years. We are where we are and let us hopefully all work together to get us out of there....

"I think, just like Congress, I had mixed emotions but our leaders chose to go to war and I think pretty much a majority of Americans said, if that's the case, if we've got to go look for weapons of mass destruction and if there are reasons to believe that they're there, we should go ahead and do it. I don't think anybody was in favor of a war. The question is, did you agree that it was necessary at the time. A lot of people did. I think now a lot of people have more mixed emotions but we have our men and women over there fighting and I want to make sure we get them home safely. Sir?"

He was then asked, "A lot of New Yorkers feel like the Bush administration was dishonest with the public about the reasons for going to war. Do you?"

"I don't have any idea - at the time it looked like, based on the intelligence that I read in the paper that there was a distinct possibility of weapons of mass destruction. The president chose to go to war and Congress voted to support that. Those are the ones that have better knowledge of it than I do. I do know that we were attacked here and I do know that it's a dangerous part of the world and I do know that losing any American, any one soldier, is a great tragedy and you have to have enormous sympathy for the parents in particular of the men and women who have given their all to fight and to protect our democracy. They've been asked to go and they answered the call. Remember, we have a volunteer army and they didn't set the policies but they're the ones that are over there every day facing the dangers."  read more »

Not much their for either supporters of opponents of the war to like. If you're in the confused middle, it's an easy stance to identify with.

Jerry Nachman, the late newsman, used to tell his anchorpersons to show “contempt for the camera.  read more »

Jerry Nachman, the late newsman, used to tell his anchorpersons to show “contempt for the came  read more »