So maybe I'm still angry about the peace rally that held me up on my way through Universitytown this weekend, making me late getting my tired boy home for his nap, but I had a lot of sympathy with this hypothesis:

For the anti-war left in America, it's really about Bush. The pent-up fury they felt after Florida never found expression or even validation in the wider culture. It was repressed in the first months of a new presidency - and then made irrelevant by 9/11. Finally, they have a chance to demonstrate their hate - which is why so much of the demonstrations' focus has not been on Saddam, Iraq or even war, but on Bush.

That's Sullivan on the motive hunt. At times I think he's too quick to pin simplistic group motives, but in this case I've seen little to contradict him. All the placards Saturday were about Bush's "war for oil" and other such tired formulations. One knucklehead (looked like a standard-issue state college humanities prof, all ideology and no semblance of actual intellect) was carrying a sign quoting Thomas Jefferson: "A little revolution now and then is a good thing." I wonder how he would feel knowing the rest of Jefferson's statement: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."