A new article in Rolling Stone titled “The Chicken Doves” examines how the Democratic Party has taken antiwar energy and turned it towards electing Democrats. Author Matt Taibbi reports that leading Democratic Party strategists have sought to make antiwar activism synonymous with electing Democrats. They have done this by allowing Democrats–who were largely elected on an antiwar platform in 2006–off the hook for continuing to vote for the war. At the same time, they have targeted their efforts towards Republicans rather than Democrats who support the war.
Not surprisingly, the article talks about Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, the group that sponsored the Iraq Summer campaign that targeted Representative Ehlers for his record on Iraq over the summer here in Grand Rapids. In addition, that group targeted other Republican representatives in Michigan. However, as we noted in a critique of the campaign published in September, the campaign was more about attacking Republicans than it was about ending the war. There was never a serious effort at building a stronger antiwar movement in the Grand Rapids or West Michigan area, and instead it sought to direct the movement towards targeting Ehlers. While targeting Ehlers makes strategic sense, it had more to do with him being Republican than his support on the war–otherwise the group would have asked him to support a stronger position than their tepidly worded statements.
Taibbi had this to say about Americans Against Escalation in Iraq:
“Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that “anti-war activism” became synonymous with “electing Democrats.” Capitalizing on America’s desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.
This supposedly grass-roots “anti-war coalition” met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!
But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi “squeezed for time” mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. “There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans,” a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.
What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group’s leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.
Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. “No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq,” boasted the future “anti-war” activist Woodhouse.”
Despite some questionable word choice and language, we recommend reading the entire article to find out more about why an independent antiwar movement is needed.
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