Reflections On A Theme: Cindy Sheehan's Protest

It is very hard to feel sorry for Cindy Sheehan since she has alligned herself with the radical left. I do feel for her but it is getting increasingly difficult. Recently, Sheehan has been quoted saying:

You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."

My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we'll put this war on trial."

She is also quoted as saying:

And now I'm going to use another 'I' word - impeachment - because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."

No one can doubt the grief and dispair of any parent loosing a child, and too many parents over too many wars have shared that grief. Sometimes the war was strongly supported as in World War II, sometimes not as in the current conflict in Iraq. What the political differences are, however, are overshadowed by the grief shared by everyone who has lost a son, a husband, a father, a wife, daughter, mother.

Robert Jones, writing at Conservative Punk has written a piece called Mama's Boy and in it, regarding Ms. Sheehan he says:

The question here is: Why parade Cindy Sheehan and her pitiable pieta for all the world to gape, throw brickbats and dissect a war half a world away?

“Don’t bother to examine a folly,� exclaimed Ayn Rand's villain extraordinaire, Ellsworth Toohey, “ask only what it accomplishes.�

Is there anybody out there who honestly believes that Cindy Sheehan has offered one new word of evidence or argument to help buttress the left’s case against the war? I doubt that even among Mrs. Sheehan’s closest handlers there’s anyone who would think to use her shopworn clichés to close their case. I think it’s safe to say that she isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Well, what could be plainer. Sheehan is accusing Israel of being behind the terror, of it being a war for oil, of Bush "killing" her son. War for Oil? Gads, Sheehan, have you looked at the gas pumps recently?

Jones follows the above with:

Cindy Sheehan’s strident vigil is about her son the way World War I was about the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo.

"What is going largely unsaid about the Sheehan media circus is the fact that the far-left has run out of arguments. At least when they repeated the “no WMD� mantra draped in multi-syllabic verbiage and run-on non-sequitur, their Big Lie attempts to sway public opinion took place under the cover of pseudo-intellectualism.

"They bankrolled a charlatan of a documentary film director to concoct a hit piece based on half-truths, innuendo and sleight-of-hand montage and those red state idiots still voted for Dubya!

"The left still find themselves at an impasse. When argumentation – and such shoddy and dishonest argumentation at that – fails, it’s time to turn on the tears and pull out the Kleenex."

Jones ends with:

I don’t need to repeat to you the left’s oft-asserted plea to “just bring home the troops.� Such notions of victory and honor aren’t to be found in their loser lexicon – “Just Bring Them Home!�

"Whom do they intend to sway the American public to bring home? Dedicated men and women who bravely face peril daily, but nonetheless put their lives on the line to build a democracy for a nation of souls who’ve never known freedom?

"Based on the 24/7 quagmire coverage, I doubt it.

"No, they intend to bring home Mrs. Sheehan’s boy, little Casey, the young kid who got suckered in to fighting W’s immoral war.

"And all those other mothers’ boys.

"Men are sentient beings with free will and agency. But, by infantilizing the American soldier, Marine, sailor and airman, the media have deftly turned the Commander in Chief into a child-murderer.

"And, the people who buy this line – what are we to think of them? Are we to leave the fate of our fighting men and women in the hands of grown-ups, such as the adults who run the Department of Defense?

"Or, are we to leave them at the mercy of the self-satisfied media elites, who condescend to and patronize our service members? And who insult our heroes, by painting them as naïve children who only know how to take orders.

"Has it not ever occurred to these Philistines that if we bring our troops home in the shameful ignominy of defeatism that we make our nation and our allies more vulnerable to attack? Must we send division after division overseas only to bring them back based upon the ephemeral inanity of poll numbers? And then, send them back to clean up the mess they should've in the first place?

"Those were rhetorical questions, of course: Most of the left know the consequences of their agenda. Truth be told, they don't give a rat's ass about our soldiers. The only use they have for our troops is to use them as a cat's paw to try to sabotage President Bush.

"Let us not insult and defame the memory of Specialist Casey Sheehan. He very well may have entered the U.S. Army as a boy. But, that troop who answered the call to protect his fellow soldiers in harm’s way – he was a man.

"It’s time for Cindy Sheehan to cut the apron strings."

But I'm still stuck with the WHO, the WHY and the WHAT is the matter with these people? The who is fairly easy, we have seen multiple reports of the instigation by Markos M of The Daily Kos, by George Lakoff scripting a new "Framing" of the debate. In this, Jones is absolutely correct, having lost the war of words and honest disagreement (see my article on Acquired/Induced Bush Derangement Syndrome here), they are re-framing the argument as "W killing the children." Added to the WHO we find our old groody friend Michael Moore. Pardon My English says it pretty well:

So I went to MichaelMoore.com and found that the majority of the home page was dedicated to Cindy Sheehan so I figure there must be a hell of a connection.

"When I say "dedicated to Cindy Sheehan" I mean just that. There is not a mention of her brave son Casey anywhere on the page. There isn't a mention of ANY of the brave soldiers who have fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan except for the liberal boast that one died used as anti-war propaganda. This whole protest and the shameless media engorgement with it has nothing at all to do with our brave soldiers and their sacrifice. It's all about Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and the media and Moore's exploitation of Sheehan and her cause for their own selfish political interests: Get us out of the war at all costs and if possible, get George W. Bush run out of Washington on a rail."

The WHY is a little more complicated, because this involves motives and peoples motives are always a little hard to discern because we cannot see their thinking, we can only see their actions. In fact, we can never tell what another person is thinking, we can only observe what they do. In this case, the WHY is predicated on the media circus that media whores such as Moore, Kos, Lakoff and others in the prostitution of Cindy Sheehan to meet their own political ends. Media Whore is pretty strong, but I think it is pretty accurate. Of course it is a strictly negative connotation and so I apologize to those who earn honest livings on their backs for comparing these media whores to them.

Jones again has it pegged correctly with his bringing up the circus that this has become, not out of respect for Casey Sheehan, but for gain on the back of a mother's grief.

Lastly, we come to the What Is The Matter With These People? That one is relatively easy too. These people are deranged, specifically, they are afflicted with Charles Krauthammer's Bush Derangement Syndrome and as such, they treat others (Bush in particular, conservatives, republicans and red-staters in general) in ways that they would never contenance treating their own family, unless of course the said family member was a conservative, republican or a dreaded red-stater. Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) is far more insidious than was Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and that was bad enough.

Perhaps, these folk and I'm referring specifically to the media whores supporting and encouraging a grieving mother in her delusional thinking (yes, delusional, more about that in another post) truly believe that they are on a mission from God. But most of them don't really buy into all that religious stuff. Perhaps they believe that after so many years of inept conservatism and them being the "powers that be" that now that the conservatives are the "powers that be" they must plot and scheme to take back the reigns of power. It doesn't occur to them (the left) that America kicked them out for a reason. No, not only doesn't it occur to them, it wouldn't occur to them.

Too many of the left are so filled with a narcissistic belief that they are the only ones that can "rule" that they have lost all ability to reason. I remember when Clinton was President, some of the foul language used by those on the right. But, as bad as that was, it doesn't come near to the strength of the foulness seen today. And, please note, I'm not talking about all of the left, and I'm not talking about those that see themselves as being slightly liberal. I'm referring only to those who's hatred of Bush cause them to be irrational, intemperate and behave in ways they would surely paddle their own kids butts if they behaved in a similar fashion.

Update, via Dawn Patroll and Mrs. Greyhawk in The Mudville Gazette a report in Newsweek:

It does not appear that the White House or the military makes any effort to screen out dissenters or embittered families, though some families decline the invitation to meet with Bush. Most families encourage the president to stay the course in Iraq. "To oppose something my husband lost his life for would be a betrayal," says Inge Colton, whose husband, Shane, died in April 2004 when his Apache helicopter was shot down over Baghdad.

Update: Welcome Instapundit and Mudville Gazette readers, feel free to leave a comment, agree, disagree or just a plain 'ole comment. Be respectful of others though.

Update: Chrenkoff has responses of other families that have lost a loved one in Iraq. A must read