I went to a really lousy Purim party because it was a fundraiser. When I entered, I was given a card to send to President Bush. Not Kofi Annan. Not the leaders of the Arab league. Not China. Not France. Just Bush. But if there is a bottleneck in the "international community," it is not Bush and Bolton.

And all that is why I didn't go to the rally. I'm not a protest march type anyway, but I have gone to large rallies where I felt just showing up made a difference, like the huge pro-Israel rally in DC four years ago, or a huge pro-choice march back in the '70s. I almost went to that huge gay pride march where they unfurled the giant quilt for blocks and blocks. All those rallies were about establishing a presence that could not be ignored.

But ending genocide in Darfur requires a focused campaign with practical objectives, rather than a feel-good exercise. Or if there must be a public statement which gets its power from a body count, then the Mall in Washington is a feel-good place to do it. The UN (for example) is a targeted place to do it.

The senators getting arrested in front of the Sudanese Embassy is a step in the right direction. So is this:

the Reform Jewish Movement is announcing today a campaign (endorsed by the National Council of Churches) that will ask America’s faith communities to join together to visit every embassy and consulate of the NATO and African Union nations, Russia, and China by June 2nd, before the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Those visits will be taking place during the counting of the Omer, in which we move from the freedom given us at Passover to the responsibility that came with accepting God’s laws at Sinai. We will ask for urgent action from their governments to stop the genocide and support UN resolutions to create a robust, well-equipped, and effective peace-keeping force with a clear mandate to protect innocent civilian life. And we call on our co-religionists across the globe to publicly and forcefully demand such action from their own governments.

At least they are starting to embarrass the right people.

David Adesnik did attend the rally, but he has similar misgivings.

Most speakers called on the Bush administration to do more, but there was really no conensus on what 'more' consists of. Some mentioned sanctions. Some mentioned peacekeepers. Most speakers exercised the safer option of being very angry but recommending nothing specific.

In fact, it would be fairly easy to criticize just about everyone at the rally for not having the slightest idea how to solve a problem we all agree is very dangerous. No one really seemed to have much confidence that sanctions would work or that effective peacekeepers would ever be sent. As Sen. Obama pointed out, we should demand more of the President, but he has done far more than the Europeans.

Naturally, no one said a word about an invasion (although I attempted to provide a subtle hint.) The sign I held above my head had two messages, one on either side: "ACT NOW" and "WE DEMAND ACTION". If you look up "action" in my thesaurus, the first entry you will find is "the US Marines".

Of course, we can't go it alone with our military so preoccupied and public opinion the way it is. But how about 1,000 soldiers from every member of NATO and from other US allies such as Japan, Australia and India? I guess that would never happen without a Security Council resolution, which is pretty much a lost cause.

Frankly, I'm not sure whether to condemn the President for not doing more or to accept that he can't do the impossible. Yes, it would nice for the Europeans -- the French even! -- to take the lead. But we learned from Bosnia and Kosovo that humanitarian intervention demands American leadership.

American leadership is pushing from one end, and the Save Darfur activists acknowliedge that, but they want to push on American leadership from behind. They could be more effective pushing on the UN and the nations involved from another angle. The Reform Movement's call to action is a good example of that. But the activists would have to start bashing some sacred cows instead of Bush.

PS Here is the "progressive social activist" attitude carried to an extreme: this article goes into great detail about the nefarious negligence and bad deeds of the UN, the Sudanese government, the janjawid, France, China and everyone else. But all the anger is directed at President Bush. The author concedes that Bush has taken some steps, more than anyone else has done, but Bush is unconscionably, maliciously negligent in not performing some sort of diplomatic magic that would make all these people behave better. None of this opprobrium attaches to them at all. If you don't want to read the whole thing, start from "Will there be an end to Bush administration posturing?" to appreciate the full force of its irrationality.