Hillary Clinton is seeing pink. Code Pink. The unruly group of far-left female apologists for tyranny around the world, most infamous for prancing around in pastel lingerie to protest President Bush and the war on terror, has now launched a nationwide campaign against the New York senator because of her opposition to immediate troop withdrawals from Iraq.
But don't weep for Hillary.
Code Pink is the group that championed military deserters, cheered Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, traipsed around the Jordan-Iraq border last year condemning America, prayed for the "people of Fallujah," doled out $600,000 in aid to what they called "the other side" and is planning a New Year's vacation to Cuba in solidarity with the Castro regime. Sen. Clinton couldn't have wished for a better Christmas present than having these loony peaceniks barking about her faux moderate makeover. 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, here she comes! If she doesn't trip on the way to her Senate re-election bid and the unhinged-dominated Democratic primaries, that is. (Two words, Hill: Skip. Iowa.)
This week, Code Pink's liberal exhibitionistas and their allies from Grandmothers Against the War, Brooklyn Parents for Peace and Veterans for Peace organized in New York City to dog Sen. Clinton for refusing to embrace the Cut-and-Run wing of the Democrat Party. Wearing "large theatrical ears and pink gear," Code Pink members planned to gather at the Manhattan club Crobar on Tuesday night to heckle Hillary during a Senate fund-raiser. Their placard-sized complaint: "Hillary, you're not listening; Bring the Troops Home Now."
(Sen. Clinton's hearing seems fine, actually. It's the anti-war zealots who need a gallon of earwax remover. Eww. What part of 403-3, the House vote against immediate withdrawal, don't they understand?)
Over the weekend, Code Pink and company shouted Sen. Clinton down in Chicago during what was supposed to be a motivational speech to young people. The Code Pink website proudly crowed:
Hillary Clinton was the keynote speaker at an event to get high school and college kids interested in politics. Eight CODEPINKers, with pink umbrellas, treated Hillary to a CODEPINK-style protest, opening their umbrellas and chanting, "Out of Iraq Now" — one word on each umbrella. People in the crowd chanted "Troops out now," and others had signs along the same vein. One friend threw leaflets down on the crowd. It was [an] amazing event!
And on Dec. 20, with C-SPAN cameras rolling, Code Pink plans to disrupt a big discussion between Hillary and liberal journalist Jane Pauley before an audience of 3,000 in San Francisco.
Hillary, looking to bolster her image as a credible mainstream figure on defense and national security matters, couldn't have staged it better herself. But is the Retreat Now! faction of the Democrat Party insurmountable?
Liberal pundits like to gloat about the supposed conservative crack-up, but the cleavages within the Democrat Party are far deeper and more difficult to straddle. Just as Sen. Clinton is fending off the rabid anti-warriors of Code Pink, guess who showed up on the group's website grinning from ear to ear with two bright Code Pink T-shirts in each hand?
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
The head of the party's coalition of the quivering has declared this week that the war in Iraq is "unwinnable" and called for bringing "80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately," while nonsensically advocating placement of "a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight [terrorist chief Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi" and sending more troops to Afghanistan instead.
Huh?
Meanwhile, the aimless John Kerry continues his long legacy of public troop-smearing — taking to CBS News airwaves to accuse American soldiers in Iraq of "terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the — of — the historical customs, religious customs." [Transcript]
This kind of deranged defeatism will earn you a Code Pink T-shirt and a hug from Cindy Sheehan. But as Hillary (dangerously for Republicans) seems to understand, it won't win much else. George W. Bush isn't the Dems' biggest enemy, it turns out. It's the living ghost of George McGovern.
Michelle Malkin [email her] is author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow's review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin's latest book is "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild."
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