In its e-mail endorsing the antiwar rally held in Washington, D.C. over the weekend, moveon.org took the unusual step of notifying its 3.5 million members that though it wanted people to attend the event, it had “disagreements on a range of issues” with the organizers.

What the e-mail left curiously unanswered was what exactly constitutes the “range of issues” with which they disagree. 

Could it be spearheading the cause of Nazi war criminals?  Or playing defense for the likes of other war criminals, including Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein?    Or serving as defense attorney for one of bin Laden’s top deputies?

Or was it something trivial, like the color of the background for the 9/11 conspiracy theory signs?

Perhaps moveon.org decided to endorse the rally organized by International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism) based on having the same view of the group as the New York Times: as an outfit “which embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives.”

But if moveon.org had done its homework—and who are we kidding; of course it did—the George Soros-backed organization would have known that it was embracing a most repugnant “progressive” group.

The founder and seemingly still the head of International ANSWER is Ramsey Clark, who, in the words of the paper of record, is a “former attorney general... who has endorsed impeaching Mr. Bush.”

Of all the ways the New York Times could have described him, the paper chose the most inanely benign one, skipping past a description that also would have been far more on-point: Clark was the defense lawyer (until getting canned) for Saddam Hussein.

Rushing to Saddam’s side after the war was par for Clark’s course.  He’s defended a star-studded roster of mass-murderers: Serbian tyrant Milosevic, former Milosevic henchman Radovan Karadzic, a Rwandan pastor accused of orchestrating the slaughter of thousands of Tutsis, al Qaeda terrorist Mohamed Al-Owhali, as well as Nazi war criminals Karl Linnas and Jack Riemer.

If only Clark had been just an attorney.  He was, in each case—to put it generously—an advocate.

All of this is known.  And much of it has been written by leftists.  Yet all the leftists at moveon.org can say is that they “disagree” with Clark’s organization on a “range of issues.”

Much as moveon.org wants to have it both ways by loving the action, but “disagreeing” in part with the actor, its endorsement of the rally is an endorsement of Ramsey Clark and his organization.  Kristinn Taylor, an organizer with FreeRepublic.com, was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle asking an appropriate question: “If the Klu Klux Klan led an anti-war demonstration, would you march in it?”

But maybe the more appropriate question would be: If Saddam Hussein organized a human rights conference, would moveon.org partake?  Ramsey Clark did.  In 1998.  As the keynote speaker.  In his speech, he identified the real human rights abusers as the United States, not the man who, by almost anyone’s account, had already slaughtered at least hundreds of thousands of his own citizens.

As the 1998 conference indicates, Clark has done so much more than just serve as defense counsel for war criminals.  He supports them.  He sympathizes with them.  He cheers them on.  He probably even loves them. Continued...