The Spirit of 1968

The Battle of Michigan Avenue is finally over, and it was won by the protesters.

The lopsided fight between anti-war demonstrators and the brutish police force of Chicago's Democratic mayor Richard Daley the night of Aug. 28, 1968, in the midst of the Democratic convention, was a debacle for the left.

The protests didn't stop the Vietnam War or the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey, the sitting vice president who was much too establishment for the radicals.

The event, broadcast on TV -- indeed, unfolding right in front of the hotel where reporters were staying -- rent the Democra...