Anderson's stage was the anti-Bush protest at Washington Square. He leveled a blistering attack on the Bush administration's dubious reasons for going to war in Iraq (Anderson called them lies), its disrespect for the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, its arrogance, its greed, its secrecy and its multifaceted incompetence. In the main, his indictments rang true, though one could quibble with details.

Anderson's theme was the administration's prevarications, and his antidote, which he developed into a chant for the crowd, was "Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"

The news media, including this newspaper, did not escape the Democratic mayor's righteous wrath. He accused news organizations of "acting like nothing more than a bulletin board for the lies and propaganda of a manipulative, dishonest federal government." In doing so, he said, the news media have not lived up to their "sacred responsibility to ascertain and report the truth."

This latter statement appears to be the only one on which Anderson and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld might agree, given the secretary's lambasting of the press a day earlier at the American Legion convention.

Anderson, the lame-duck mayor of a rogue capital city in the most pro-President Bush state in the union, did not mince words.

"Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism. A patriot does not tell people who are intensely concerned about their country to just sit down and be quiet; to refrain from speaking out in the name of politeness or for the sake of being a good host; to show slavish, blind obedience and deference to a dishonest, war-mongering, human-rights-violating president.

"That is not a patriot. Rather, that person is a sycophant. That person is a member of a frightening culture of obedience - a culture where falling in line with authority is more important than choosing what is right, even if it is not easy, safe, or popular."

We have criticized the mayor more than once in the past for his blunt style and self-righteousness, even on occasions when we have agreed with him in principle.

But the debate on the Iraq war would be better focused, and the nation's policies would be better conceived, if more Americans were, like Anderson, willing to speak truth to power and demand accountability.