Berkeley ups ante, tries to get rid of Marines

There's a brewing war being waged by the City of Berkeley, California, to get rid of a US Marine Corp Recruiting station that is open inside the city limits.  

In the last few days, Berkeley has tried to do several things to pressure the Marines to leave town.  Of course, there's lots of outrage and reaction to this move.  More after the jump.

This probably isn't helpful to fight the meme that progressives hate the troops.  The City of Berkeley, California, has long had the reputation of being one of the most progressive or liberal places in America.  

Background: there's been a long battle over the military and Berkeley, with the Marine Corps opening up a recruitment center some time ago--it's the only recruitment center in Berkeley.

The City counsel of Berkeley started the process last week to try to treat the military center the same as an adult business or other "undesireable element."

Here's the actual petition: Link

And last night, the city counsel passed two resolutionsthat criticize the military recruitment center and also gives Code Pink special protesting authority right out the military center's door.  The city counsel gave Code Pink special parking privileges to protest in front of the recruitment station, (apparently to the dismay of businesses nearby, as well).  

In addition, the city attorney was to send a letter saying the marines were a "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" to the city.  

City counsel members went on record with statements that imply the marines are a danger to "the health and safety of our youth."  

Oh, and they also pointed out it wasn't a reaction to the Iraq war.  

Reaction to this has been swift.  Code Pink has gone on the record as saying "If it weren’t for people like the people in Berkeley, standing up for what they believe, we’d be living under Hitler."  This apparently means that the Marines are the same as the SS in Code Pink's eyes.  

Nationally, conservative reaction has been swift, of course.  It's kind of hard to not come to the conclusion that Berkeley and Code Pink, with this stunt, is purely and simply anti-military.  They are attacking the troops themselves in this instance.  

Senator DeMint has proposed a bill that in essence says that if Berkeley wants to smear the troops that keep them safe enough to be able to say these things, then they don't deserve any other federal funding.  Thus, his bill would strip out all money destined for Berkeley, about $2 Million worth.  

I'm sorry for the FoxNews link, but CNN, ABC, and MSNBC didn't have anything up on this.  

So what does it mean?  It's kind of clear that this is a pretty blatant attack on the Marine Corp itself.  The people and city of Berkeley pretty well have made it clear they not only do not support the war, they don't support the troops at all.  

What do you think--should Berkeley, one of the main centers of progressive thought, back down, or should they be proud of their stand against the troops?  And what about other progressives--repudiate the anti-troop message, or embrace it?  To embrace it will, of course, not look good (attacking the troops in a time of war?--probably not the best idea).  

What do you think--do you applaud the city of Berkeley (and in so doing forfeit any complaints when conservatives say progressives don't support the troops) or do you think they've gone way over the line?