While I am an admirer of Lexington's work, I feel his latest column was a big swing and a miss. I am using a baseball metaphor because this is America. And in America, regardless of where you stand on their ideals, convictions, or sanity, people like Medea Benjamin are not part of the national discourse.
Benjamin has managed to get herself thrown out of a number of high-profile political speeches in the past six years -- if you Google her name and "interrupted," you'll find no fewer than 2,700 links. But you know what Benjamin hasn't been able to interrupt? The war in Iraq.
Notwithstanding Benjamin's work helping sick and starving people and advocating for fair trade, for journalists to quote her regarding ending the war in Iraq as if she stands at the head of a viable movement is simply irresponsible. When she's recorded in the Bay Guardian as stating "Don't put your hopes in Barack Obama in getting us out of Iraq. Put your hopes in the people," the logical question is "What people? Surely they're not your people." When she's quoted in the Economist complaining that Obama hasn't addressed Israel's incursion into Gaza, one can only wonder if Benjamin will pressure this president as effectively as she pressured the last one about his foreign policy.
