On Jan. 20, George W. Bush was inaugurated as the 43rd president of the United States. Characteristic of the nature of large events attended by or centered on the President, there were thousands of protesters not only in Washington, D.C., but across the country. Such activities consisted of events such as a "Jazz Funeral for Democracy" in New Orleans, a mock inauguration in Baltimore in which a woman wearing a Bush mask stumbled over her words and a "kiss in" outside the statehouse in Austin, Tx., which consisted of a group of 50 people who beat drums and decided to "make out, not make war."

To the unthinking American liberal, these protests may very well seem like an excellent way to keep on fighting the agenda and the very real threat Bush poses to the flourishing left-wing politics in this country. The protests are visible, clear, almost completely peaceful, and hey, it worked in the Vietnam War, didn't it? The reality is, unfortunately, far different. In addition to being ineffective, protesting the inauguration of George W. Bush was, if not a setback, at the very least a symptom of the stagnation of the left-wing political movement in America.

Many of the prominent protests of Bush's inauguration exceeded the normally harmless demonstrations: one of the most well-known was the seemingly pragmatic "Not One Damn Dime Day" in which people who were unsatisfied with Bush's re-election were urged to boycott all forms of consumer spending-the point of which was to "shut the retail economy down." Although its ostensible objective was to "remind" conservative politicians that the American people won't stand for the war in Iraq, and that the government should work less for corporations and more for the general public, such a collective boycott was nothing more than destructive, misguided laziness cloaked in the guise of collective action. It's an example of an ill-aimed protest that hurt the American consumer more than any politician.

Additionally, the issues that the left wing has with President Bush have, contrary to the 2000 election, nothing to do with the completion of the American democratic process that the inauguration represents. Though there certainly were, as in every election, flaws with the actual election that merit addressing, there can be no doubt in anyone's mind that Bush legitimately got a fair (3.5 million) majority of the votes. The protesters should not have primarily lamented the fact that Bush is being inaugurated, but that a majority of Americans were willing to re-elect a president who forfeited an economic surplus, created the nation's largest deficit in history and either presided over and did little against or supported events such as the proposal of an anti-gay marriage amendment to the Constitution, abuse at Abu Ghraib prison and the invasion of Iraq. The democratic process is a double-edged sword, and there is always a loser.

If American liberals really want to change the apparent swell in conservatism in this country, they need to avoid focusing on the fact that Bush has just been inaugurated-there is nothing wrong with that. It was merely the finishing point of the democratic process. Protesting the inauguration was short-sighted, ineffective and just plain lazy. Americans who care about the survival of left-wing values need to stop pretending that simply protesting will change anything. Instead, they should start trying to educate and empathize with that scarily large chunk of America that still believes that Saddam Hussein had connections to Al Qaeda and that most of the world supports the war on Iraq.

Liberals are only perpetuating the at least partially true stereotype that they are self-righteous, angry, lazy, intolerant and unwilling to try to understand why others may hold different viewpoints. It creates the impression, in the minds of many Americans, that liberals are attacking America rather than the actual targets, the conservatives in power. This is the very sanctimonious behavior and attitude that portray Democrats as angry, hard-to-understand (as any less than intelligent American, of which there are many, would have said after watching Kerry speak), and directing their anger at America rather than at specific people in power. The latter perception may certainly be true, but the Left needs to find a way to simplify its message and stop acting irritatingly and counterproductively self-righteous. There's a reason that the Left lost the 2004 election, and it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not its candidate was smarter, more compassionate or would have made America a stronger or more prosperous nation.

?McNally can be reached at jemcnally@amherst.edu