Yeah, I agree with what you are saying. I think the Left has been very careful with what it is saying, but we're finding that the other side is misrepresenting our tone and message. (Starhawk touches on the "finesse" issue in her essay that I just forwarded.)
We're all aware about how Andrew Sullivan and others have bagged on the left, notably Sontag and Chomsky. This was pretty clearly an effort to marginalize us, get us to shut up, and force us to adopt moderate positions against the war. These smear efforts even got so far as one article on the "death" of the anti-globalization movement which quoted some comments from a anti-glob chatroom that were favorable about the attacks. This reporter had to go to a *chatroom* in order to find activists who were speaking positively about the attacks. If that person quoted was even an activist!
I think it is pretty evident that most American are not on the same page concerning the war. Many of them are trying to find out more about what's really been going on in that part of the world. This was evident to me this morning when I looked at the Washington Post bestseller charts. The paperback nonfiction list was loaded with titles that are related to the current crisis. Hey, even *Empire* made an appearance at #9.
Chuck0