Lileks on the protest marches...

Once again, Lileks gets right down to the nub of it:

Imagine if you woke from an operation and discovered that your tumor was gone. You’d think: I suppose that’s a good thing. But. You learned that the hospital might profit from the operation. You learned that the doctor who made the diagnosis had decided to ignore all the other doctors who believed the tumor could be discouraged if everyone protested the tumor in the strongest possible terms, and urged the tumor to relent. How would you feel? You’d be mad. You’d look up at the ceiling of your room and nurse your fury until you came to truly hate that butcher. And when he came by to see how you were doing, you’d have only one logical, sensible thing to say: YOU TOOK IT OUT FOR THE WRONG REASONS. PUT IT BACK!

The other day a variety of people gathered in various cities to say, in essence, put it back. The Movement to Reinstall Saddam commemorated the first anniversary of the Iraq campaign by expressing their outrage at the loss of an ally in the war against America. These people are the fringe of the left; yes. They are the Klan with out the sheets. Worse: they don’t have the inbred moonshine-addled mah-pappy-hated-nigras-an-I-hate-‘em-too dense-as-a-neutron-star stupidity of your average Kluxer. They didn’t come to this level of stupidity naturally. They had to work at it. I’m sure you’ll find in these pictures people who have cool jobs in San Francisco, people who get grants, write code, run the coffee-frother at a funky bookstore, and have no problem marching alongside someone who spells Israel with swastika instead of an S.

He's also got a picture, via this link, of a protester who notes that "I [heart] NY even more without the World Trade Center."

I don't say this very much, but (ahem)...

Attention cowardly protester hiding his face behind the sign: Fuck you.