I hesitate to mention yet another Howard Dean blunder as he (along with Soros and Bing and Lewis) seem to be successfully destroying the opposition party. Nevertheless, his posing with Code Pink wares at a DNC meeting in Arizona does seem beyond his usually appalling gaffes.

As Redstate notes, Code Pink is a hardcore Marxist operation:

Code Pink is not your average, everyday collection of "peace activists." This is, after all, the group that raised $600,000 last year to aid terrorists in Fallujah. As Code Pink co—founder Medea Benjamin put it at the time, "I don't know of any other case in history in which the parents of fallen soldiers collected medicine...for the families of the 'other side'."

Ms. Benjamin and the other co—founders of Code Pink have been "on the other side" for quite a while.

In the 1980's, Benjamin worked as a project coordinator for the Institute for Food and Development Policy (IFDP), which was widely credited with aiding the Marxist Sandinista regime. Upon visiting Cuba in the 1980's, Benjamin told the San Francisco Chronicle that Castro's paradise "made it seem like I died and went to heaven." She is widely credited as a chief organizing force behind the 1999 Seattle riots in which 50,000 protesters did millions of dollars worth of property damage.

Code Pink spokeswoman Sandy Brim flew an American neurosurgeon to San Salvador in 1985 to operate on Marxist Revolutionary Party Commander Nidia Diaz, whose hand had been injured in combat. Diaz's group had claimed responsibility for the murders of four U.S. Marines and nine civilians two months before. Kirsten Moller, the current executive director of Global Exchange and Code Pink, like Benjamin, worked for IFDP in the 80s.

On the other hand this may be the start of the brilliant new strategy Mickey Kaus observed:

[Michael Oates Palmer Fallacy]MOPF liberals are constantly looking for politicians with the "courage" to stand up to the voters in the face of their boorish prejudice. (In this instance, Palmer lauds Mark Warner's grant of clemency to a convicted killer.) Almost by definition, the issues on which Democrats are least likely to win become the litmus tests of character. If the American people actually support something (like welfare reform) it immediately becomes suspect——"a little hateful shotglass of Dick Morris triangulation," in the memorable phrase Palmer uses to describe Bill Clinton's willingness to execute Ricky Ray Rector. It's not hard to see why Democrats with this attitude——the electorate's wrong, and what's needed is a politician willing to tell them where to stuff it——tend to remain in the minority. 

What a better way to test that than by supporting a group that raised over a half a million dollars for the enemy?
 
Clarice Feldman   12 06 05