Bay Area out of step in U.S. march to war

Washington -- When the roll is called in Congress on the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, most local members will vote no, again showing the Bay Area marches to a drummer different from most of America.

Large House and Senate majorities are expected to back the resolution that President Bush negotiated with bipartisan congressional leaders. In the 434- member House, where a vote is scheduled for today, opponents say that about 100 members will vote against the resolution, including all but two of the Bay Area's 11 Democratic members.

When the roll is called in Congress on the resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, most local members will vote no, again showing the Bay Area marches to a drummer different from most of America.

Not "the Bay Area". Their representatives, backed up by a propagandizing media and the elites and busybodies who vote in disproportionate numbers. Not quite the same.

"We are, after all, the 'Left Coast' city," said David Lee of the Chinese American Voter Education Committee in San Francisco.

And with this Mr. Lee links "left" with "support for dictators". Nice, I guess that means I don't have to.

The reasons for the Bay Area's exceptionalism are many, analysts say, but they add up to a liberal hammerlock on local politics, where anti-war sentiment and disdain for Bush's conservative policies on a wide range of issues are the order of the day.

There is a hammerlock all right, but it's got nothing to with anything "liberal". Leftism ain't "liberal". A "hands off the dictator" position ain't "liberal".

History tells a lot about the Bay Area's political independence.

What "independence"? The author just got through talking about a "hammerlock", and how all Bay Area politicians toe the leftist line (which the author calls "liberal" for some reason). What's "independent" about any of that?

the Bay Area has attracted anti-authoritarian free spirits, Gitlin said.

Anti-authoritarian? Even assuming we ignore the support of leftists for Stalin (an authoritarian if there ever was one), now for some reason they're all still objectively pro-authoritarian (Saddam). How did that happen?

"Northern California has drawn lots of people who aren't interested in going lockstep through their lives -- it's almost self-selecting," said Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a group that encourages the mainstream media to use voices from the left.

Priceless: for these people, who "aren't interested in going lockstep", the way to express their "independence" is to... go lockstep through their lives as leftists.

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