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Jewish World Review August 16, 2005 / 16 Av, 5765 The radicalism of Cindy Sheehan By Rich Lowry
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
How long can it be until Cindy Sheehan gets her own show on the
left-wing radio network Air America? The mother of a 24-year-old
killed in Iraq, who has camped out in Crawford, Texas, demanding a
meeting with President Bush, has made herself the mouthpiece not of
those many Americans skeptical about a war that has proven far more
difficult than advertised, but of howling-at-the-moon, bile-spewing
Bush haters.
Bush has always been lucky in his opposition, whether it be Al
Gore or John Kerry and the Hollywood stars and MoveOn.org activists
who surrounded him. Sheehan seemed an exception. She's a mother
whose loss gives her the moral standing to question the war. Her
request seems eminently reasonable — a mere meeting with the man
who sent her son to war. But Bush is proving fortunate again, and no
evil machinations by Karl Rove have been necessary. Sheehan has
discredited herself.
She has charged that Bush — "that lying bastard," "that maniac"
— killed her son. This is unforgivably sloppy moral reasoning. An
Iraq insurgent killed her son (some outrage directed toward that
killer would seem appropriate, but apparently Sheehan can't muster
it). The Iraq War was congressionally authorized by bipartisan
majorities. If Bush killed her son, so did Kerry, who voted to
authorize the war. If supporting the war is tantamount to murder,
someone should arrest Sen. Joe Biden for vocally supporting our
continued presence in Iraq.
Maybe Sheehan's accusation is just the sloppy rhetoric of a
grieving mom? No, she means it. On a July 12 posting on the
left-wing Web site DailyKos.com, Sheehan raved that she was
undertaking her protest "for all our brave souls (American or Iraqi)
who have been murdered by the Bush crime family. I told my
Congressman that he needs to speak out against the lies and murder."
This is paranoia reminiscent of the Clinton-murdered-people charges
of loony right-wingers during the 1990s. Except those people never
got media attention, unless it was to discredit them.
In a conference call with anti-war bloggers last week, Sheehan
said that without the Internet America "would already be a fascist
state." She maintained that "the mainstream media is a propaganda
tool for the government." And she referred to last year's
presidential election as "the election, quote-unquote, that happened
in November." Nothing would help Sheehan's cause more than an
extended bout of dignified silence, of which she seems incapable.
Sheehan already met with Bush once before. The request for a
second meeting seems mostly about publicity. It's the basis for her
presence at Crawford that has drawn so many cameras. She obviously
doesn't seek comfort from Bush, nor can she tell him anything that
he can't already read in the press about how she thinks he should be
"tried on war crimes and go to jail."
In the end, it isn't that Bush is lucky in his opponents so much
that his opposition is poisoned by its own noxious passions. It's
not an accident that the anti-war movement throws up leaders like
Michael Moore, the dishonest filmmaker, and Cindy Sheehan. They
reflect its own inability to distinguish between legitimate
criticisms of the war and unhinged but emotionally self-satisfying
attacks that will turn off most Americans. At a difficult phase in
Iraq, it is especially important that the nation have a responsible,
constructive opposition. Cindy Sheehan demonstrates that the Left is
still incapable of providing one.
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© 2005 King Features Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
