To: Sully- who wrote (10662 ) 5/22/2005 3:08:50 PM From: Sully- Respond to of 35834 WALKING AWAY FROM THE LEFT By Michelle Malkin May 22, 2005 11:24 AM Must-read of the morning comes from Keith Thompson, a northern California liberal--or rather, ex-liberal, who has a long essay in the San Francisco Chronicle today on why he left the Left. His day of reckoning was Jan. 30, 2005. Here's the intro: <<< Nightfall, Jan. 30. Eight-million Iraqi voters have finished risking their lives to endorse freedom and defy fascism. Three things happen in rapid succession. The right cheers. The left demurs. I walk away from a long-term intimate relationship. I'm separating not from a person but a cause: the political philosophy that for more than three decades has shaped my character and consciousness, my sense of self and community, even my sense of cosmos. I'm leaving the left -- more precisely, the American cultural left and what it has become during our time together. I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives -- people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere -- reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode. My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see . Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom. >>> Read the whole thing. And welcome, Keith! Glad to have you on our side.michellemalkin.com sfgate.com