Anti-war demonstrators gathered in Tom McCall Waterfront Park Sunday afternoon with a single message: Vote pro-war politicians out of office.
Kudos to the rally organizers for getting the right message out there, untrampled and undiluted, and to the Oregonian for getting the message. This is one of the most comforting things I've seen in a good long while.By comparison, KOIN-TV's 6 o'clock report chose to hang the story on the standard GOP "rallying for peace versus supporting the troops" frame--as if concern for the troops wasn't motivating the people marching at Waterfront Park today. And after listening to KOIN go on admit that there were no counter-demonstrators--but in the interest of saphead objectivity they assured their viewers that the hypothetical counter-demonstrators (who didn't show) nevertheless held their beliefs "just as passionately" as the 10,000+ actual people who showed up to oppose the war--it was nice to see the O treatment on the rally acknowledging that, for one afternoon at least, this really was a story with pretty much only one side.
And as long as I'm making nice, the Oregonian had a powerful front-page story today about the grim effect that the war is having on some military families, even after the ones who serve return home. (In case you find this link after the Oregonian has archived the story, a big chunk of it is excerpted at The News Blog.)
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