Rob has an entry noting a Wall Street Journal piece that — well, I'll let him tell it:

The ‘Best of the Web’ column in the online WSJ today uses Oakland’s post-superbowl-loss riots to demonstrate “just how peaceful the denizens of that part of the Country are” and, by implication, suggest that the area's widespread opposition to the war in Iraq is disingenuous. (It even puts “antiwar” in quotes, to make the point even stronger).

(I'd link to the article, but, y’know, registration-only and all that.)

I haven't really got anything to add.

I'd just like to castigate everyone I know in the Bay Area (including my mother, the Green, pacifist, feminist union organizer) for, all these years, pretending not to be citizens of the Raider Nation. (And thanks for not buying me all those war toys when I was a kid, mom, you hypocrite.)

And Rob — I don't want to hear any more ominous news about your brother being posted to the Middle East with the 82nd Airborne; at least, not until you apologize to the good people of Tampa Bay.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Apples is oranges.

Thank you.

Here's the piece itself. (Toward the bottom — “Dispatch from the Peace Belt.”) It's not from the Journal's main page; rather James Taranto's OpinionJournal sideline “Best of the Web”. (The level of discourse of which, I have to say, seems typical of the Journal's editorial staff.) Note that the SF Chronicle story Mr. Taranto's blogging makes no reference to the war, or to the Bay Area's alleged “pro-Saddam” sympathies. That's all WSJ love.

My castigation stands.