The Steamboat Today’s recent Our View piece lauding last weekend’s Women’s March paid tribute to a “multigenerational crowd with men, women and children” coming together in support of some “theme” or other.

In what was, I suppose, a pro forma gesture to avoid the appearance of completely whitewashing the impetus behind the event, the Our View brain trust did make a couple of vague concessions: “the reasons to march were rooted in politics” and “The event was clearly and almost uniformly left leaning.” That’s a bit like observing how water is wet and Anthony Weiner is creepy.

The closer one gets to the grass roots – the Steamboat gathering, for example – the further (one hopes) we can find ourselves removed from some of the more virulent motivations the human race has to offer.

Typical among the Women’s March national leadership is the malignant Linda Sarsour, among whose favorite targets is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali is a Somali Muslim and a critic of the most extreme iterations of Islam. A relentless advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, she fights against forced marriage, honor killings, child marriage and female genital mutilation (Hirsi Ali was forcibly mutilated at the age of 5).

For the crime of being an uppity woman presuming to take a stand, she is surrounded at all times by bodyguards, to protect her from multiple death sentences issued by the knuckle-draggers she has called out. She is not only a fearless feminist, she is one of the most courageous human beings of this or any generation.

Linda Sarsour’s tweet about Hirsi Ali makes Donald Trump look like Robert Frost: “Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She’s askin’ 4 an a$$ whippin’.” So inclusive. So tolerant. So understanding.

There are countless other examples from the Women’s March national leadership, of course, but the 600-word limit imposed on letters to the editor precludes me from sharing them here.

The bile spewed by Sarsour and her ilk hasn’t raised a single eyebrow in the Women’s March crowd, from which assessments of their convictions and character are not quite as charitable as those published by Our View.

Brian Kotowski

Steamboat Springs