It’s July in Austin, Texas. I’m wear­ing an elec­tric pink cape screech­ing to a milling audi­ence of sev­er­al hun­dred who await the appear­ance of House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi (D‑Calif.). It’s uncom­fort­able for many rea­sons, but I’m a reporter embed­ded in the anti­war move­ment. This is my job.

At a November press conference at the Heritage Foundation, President Bush singled out Code Pink -- along with what he called "MoveOn.org bloggers" -- for setting a dangerous, radical agenda for U.S. politics.

A team of sev­en rose-hued women sur­rounds me, all of us yelling in uni­son. Most of the women are bet­ter dressed, at least as far as the occa­sion calls for – hook­er boots, glit­tery logos, las­sos, tights and masks – and sport hero­ic monikers like ​“The Ham­mer of Com­mon Sense,” ​“Jus­ti­cia” and ​“Voice of the People.”

The lone male with us wears com­i­cal­ly short prison grays, over­sized plas­tic shack­les and a giant paper-mache head meant to resem­ble the nog­gin’ of the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States.

“Impeach Bush,” his fly­ers proclaim.

We’re at Net­roots Nation, where Pelosi has been invit­ed to respond to audi­ence queries. Ten­sions had been high since the appear­ance was announced. Pro­gres­sives balked online about her refusal to call con­gres­sion­al hear­ings to impeach Bush, a posi­tion she’s dogged­ly held since the 2006 mid-term elections.

Pos­si­bly to quell Pelosi’s dis­com­fort, event orga­niz­ers took most ques­tions in advance (none of that pesky democ­ra­cy here!), and demand­ed the crowd lim­it ​“inter­rup­tions.” In oth­er words – as some blog­gers posit­ed in real time at the event – they want­ed Code Pink to keep quiet.

But inter­rup­tions came from else­where, not from the Austin chap­ter of Code Pink ​“Sheroes,” whose mem­bers kept qui­et for the most part. They formed a silent line across the back of the room in front of the row of video cam­eras, direct­ly in Pelosi’s line of sight.

‘ Sil­ly and girly’

Code Pink has come to be viewed as a gag­gle of smart but sil­ly women, an unkempt list­serv, and a mis­matched array of girly accou­trements, housed on Capi­tol Hill, in a space known sim­ply as the D.C. House.

In 2002, Medea Ben­jamin, Jodie Evans, Starhawk and Diane Wil­son found­ed the orga­ni­za­tion, begin­ning with a four-month White House vig­il and joined by 100 ded­i­cat­ed, bright­ly clad adher­ents. The group has become a light­ning rod for crit­i­cism of the anti­war move­ment – and of con­tem­po­rary activism.

At a Novem­ber press con­fer­ence at the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, Pres­i­dent Bush sin­gled out Code Pink – along with what he called ​“MoveOn​.org blog­gers” – for set­ting a dan­ger­ous, rad­i­cal agen­da for U.S. pol­i­tics. This atti­tude is also echoed in our sup­pos­ed­ly left-lean­ing media.

“The Dai­ly Show” reg­u­lar­ly stages par­o­dies of Code Pink’s tac­tics of strate­gic irri­ta­tion, sat­i­riz­ing inter­rup­tions at con­gres­sion­al debates, and open­ly mock­ing pro­test­ers at mil­i­tary recruit­ing stations.

Salon​.com writer Cin­tra Wil­son calls the group ​“an eye­sore,” not unlike ​“an irri­tat­ing children’s birth­day party.”

Many activists have pri­vate­ly expressed sim­i­lar wish­es that Code Pink would just go away. As one well-dressed lefty con­fid­ed to me in Austin after I’d stowed my cape: ​“Crap. Code Pink.”

Griev­ances

The crit­i­cisms slung at Code Pink hint toward sex, class, race and age bias­es still har­bored in the polit­i­cal left. The mid­dle-aged, upper-mid­dle class white ladies who have tra­di­tion­al­ly made up the group’s core might seem bet­ter placed at the heads of kinder­garten class­rooms or behind the desks of libraries.

The under­ly­ing sen­ti­ment: ​‘What could they pos­si­bly have to com­plain about? They are white! They are comfortable!’

For starters, they have much to opine about: a tank­ing econ­o­my, an ille­gal war, and a strip­ping of our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. In fact, these mid­dle-aged ladies are using their posi­tions of com­fort for the pub­lic good, agi­tat­ing not for bet­ter cof­fee at PTA meet­ings, but for an oust­ing of mil­i­tary recruit­ment facil­i­ties from school campuses.

“These ​‘mid­dle-aged ladies’ are my dai­ly inspi­ra­tion,” Code Pink Cam­paign Man­ag­er Dana Bal­ic­ki explains. And she’s in her 20s. ​“I’ve wit­nessed women go from total dis­com­fort with e‑mailing to orga­niz­ing local protests using Face­book and cre­at­ing their own action blogs, leav­ing pho­tos and YouTube videos in their wake.”

Code Pink’s D.C. House mama, Desiree Fairooz, joined the group two years ago because of ​“the cre­ativ­i­ty, the ​‘in-your-face’ tac­tics, and the per­sis­tence,” she says.

You might have seen pho­tos of Fairooz in the media – images of her with her hands cov­ered in blood, con­fronting Sec­re­tary of State Con­doleez­za Rice about war crimes.

Since last spring, Fairooz led a Code Pink team to Capi­tol Hill every day for a year to call for votes against a $165 bil­lion Iraq War bud­get increase, which Con­gress passed in May. It’s a defeat that still stings.

“This is only the most recent, and per­haps most egre­gious betray­al,” says Medea Ben­jamin. ​“It was so obvi­ous­ly a polit­i­cal ploy to avoid anoth­er vote on war fund­ing before the Novem­ber elections.”

Even Sen. Barack Obama’s recent­ly pro­posed time­line to pull out of Iraq hasn’t slowed Code Pink. Because of his pledge to shift focus onto the war in Afghanistan, the group has a new, secret cam­paign that will kick off after the election.

Code Pink often has in place five or six cam­paigns – aimed at avoid­ing war with Iran, shift­ing Oba­ma to the left or decreas­ing depen­den­cy on fos­sil fuels. Three or four cam­paigns dom­i­nate week­ly staff con­fer­ence calls. Anoth­er three or four sit on the back­burn­er, occa­sion­al­ly recon­sid­ered – or ​“pinked up” – for pub­lic view.

On June 13, when a Berke­ley, Calif., counter-recruit­ment cam­paign became heat­ed, some Code Pink pro­test­ers respond­ed to the ris­ing temps by, well, tak­ing off their shirts. ​“Breasts not bombs,” they explained to passers­by and to the police who arrest­ed them. (A lat­er protest suc­cess­ful­ly shut down the station.)

But it’s moments like this when the group becomes known as an emp­ty brand instead of a change-mak­ing movement.

Ben­jamin is quick to acknowl­edge fail­ures: ​“The war is still rag­ing in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are mil­lions of Iraqis who are refugees and dis­placed – we have not been suc­cess­ful in get­ting more funds to help them – Guan­tá­namo has not been closed, FISA was passed, and on and on.”

The Bush administration’s sway over media must cause us to ques­tion the depic­tions of the anti­war move­ment. The media did, after all, send us to war with­out due dili­gence – and told sto­ries based pri­mar­i­ly on the accounts of embed­ded reporters.

By con­trast, lit­tle media sur­round­ed Code Pink’s speak­ing tour of Iraqi women last year. The group vis­it­ed more than 100 U.S. cities, call­ing for the mil­i­tary to leave Iraq. Fam­i­lies with enlist­ed sons and daugh­ters called to lend support.

Oth­er suc­cess­es are just as per­son­al. D.C. House vol­un­teers tell sto­ries of con­gres­sion­al secu­ri­ty guards who whis­per appre­ci­a­tion that the group con­tin­ues to make its pres­ence – and demands – felt on the Hill.

Ben­jamin points to larg­er vic­to­ries: ​“The Democ­rats tak­ing con­trol of Con­gress in 2006 due to the anti­war sen­ti­ment; Oba­ma win­ning over Hillary because of his stance against the war [and] the new grow­ing con­sen­sus on the need for a time­line for with­draw­al. … And so far, the fact that the U.S. mil­i­tary has not invad­ed Iran.”

Still, what gets atten­tion – even among our lib­er­al media – is the girly color.

“Code Pink is about reclaim­ing the rich­ness of fem­i­nin­i­ty and pow­er,” Bal­ic­ki says, ​“which is har­nessed in our gen­er­al dis­taste of the col­or that, for many, rep­re­sent­ed all things typ­i­cal, sub­dued, appro­pri­ate, pre­dictable, sim­ple and rea­son­able – val­ues most of us strug­gled to leave aside.”

She adds: ​“Once you march with 10,000 women in pink around the White House, the col­or nev­er looks the same. Nei­ther do you.”