I would like to offer my kudos and support to a strong, brave woman who stands up to power and stares it right in the eye: Cindy Sheehan. Thanks to her courage and determination, the American people have a focus for telling Bush he was wrong with this stupid war. Cindy Sheehan turned out to be the right person at the right time, like Rosa Parks who catalyzed the Civil Rights movement. So here’s a big shout out to Cindy, who has exposed Bush for being the chickenshit little man that he is.
More of a MPSIMS item than GD, but whatever.
It really is a rather pathetic that seemingly most Americans, even when they do recognize the flimsy rationale for this war, can only see it in terms of how it affects them personally. I’d like to see a couple of ordinary Iraqi civilians who had lost members of THEIR families, either through US military action or the insurgency, asking Mr. Bush to explain how their lives had been improved by the invasion. More to the point, really.
Cindy Sheehan is the byproduct of a slow news cycle, and her story would have fallen of the front page had it not been for the actions of a few locals.
There was an anti war movement before she came along, and there will be one after she leaves. The only reason she garnered any press is because the media, through market research and polling, found that support for the war has been dropping, and felt that her story would put a face to those poll numbers.
Had the right wind zealots and the red neck locals ignored her little camp, we would all be asking “Cindy who?”
I’ve seen you make this assertion elsewhere, and I disagree. Her little movement was gaining steam before anybody fired a shotgun into the air or drove through the memorial. People were joining her from around the country, and even a counter-protest site was established near her camp.
She’s a media darling de jour, but not solely due to “right wing zealots and red neck locals”. They might have given the story some leg, but it would still be in the news at least until Bush is finished with his vacation.
Except Rosa Parks did not spout ignorant conspiracy theories and was not a media whore.
Look, I’ve got no problem with people protesting the war. I’m basically anti-war myself. However, I do have a problem with ignorance. Cindy Sheehan is spouting conspiracy theories (Bush went to war to enrich his oil buddies) that have no basis in fact. She is also saying that Bush killed her kid. Sorry, but your kid freely signed up for the military and an Iraqi killed him. It’s sad, but by the very nature of their job soldiers are agreeing to risk their lives for the mission. He could have avoided being killed by simply not signing up for the military.
There are plenty of reasons to oppose President Bush. Sheehan needs to quit dealing in conspiracy theories and blaming Bush for her son’s death. Neither assertions do much for her credibility.
I’ll say what I said in the other thread. Merely losing a son in a war doesn’t give one absolute moral authority to proclaim what is true and not true about this conflict. There are plenty of family members of slain veterans who support President Bush politically, and agree with the need to go to war. Their opinions aren’t invalidated by the existence of Cindy Sheehan.
Nor should their opinions be given more weight than anybody else’s simply because they lost family members too.
So with that, what we have here is one woman with an opinion, and some views that I frankly find to be not only wrong, but dangerous to our country should they be implemented. I certainly have the right to say so if I feel that way.
What I don’t have the right to do, at least in polite company, is to disrespect Cindy Sheehan or minimize her loss. I haven’t done this, myself, and I don’t particularly like reading about people who have.
That “kid” was a legal adult who knew full well what he was doing. As a matter of fact, he had reenlisted in 2004 when the war had already begun, and when he was fully acquainted already with the Army and its demands.
I certainly feel sorry for her, and maybe if W gave her the attention she wanted early on, she wouldn’t have become so radicalized. Now, she comes across as another shrill leftie who happens to have the edge of having lost a loved one.
Not courageous, not sympathetic, just sad.
That said, the @$$hat in the truck who plowed down the cross & flag memorial display her group set up needs to be treated with a major dose of whoop@$$.
I guess this is a blatant hi-jack, but-
Why DID we need to go to war?
Cindy Sheehan is a political grandstander. I feel for her loss, and she certainly has a right to her opinion, but the idea that Bush has any obligation to come to her just to be shouted at by a crowd of anti-war protesters is absurd. She’s not looking for a dialogue, she’s looking for an opportunity to heckle him.
I don’t suppose the fact matters that Bush had already met with Sheehan before all this fooraw started, does it? Nor the fact that her entire family has denounced her for becoming a political whore? Nor the fact that her husband is divorcing her over this?
Nah, why let facts get in the way of a chance to badmouth Bush? And that, in a nutshell, is what this whole sorry mess is about. Sheehan is a fool who is being used by the libs to cast Bush in a bad light, nothing more. She’ll get a payoff down the line; there will probably be a book written or a TV movie made and she’ll get money from it. And the libs will continue to dance in Cloud-Cuckoo_Land, thinking they have done something worthwhile, instead of being ashamed for what they’ve done to that poor woman.
But there was another important factor-- the press corps is sitting in Crawford twiddling their thumbs waiting for the few interviews Bush is goign to give them. How convenient that they happen to have a story they can work on while they’re there.
We had massive anti-war protests that got their one or two day news coverage. How many people have “flocked” to this protest? Looks like 50, maybe 100 tops. Once August is over and Bush returns to DC, Ms. Sheehan will no longer be a story.
So do you have evidence of any of the personal bile you’re spewing over this?
Her husband is divorcing over this? I know they are divorcing, but unless you have a direct line to her life, could it be they are divorcing because she seems to be having having a very difficult time coping with her oldest sons death.
You know, I was going to write a long logical post disputing your post, but it makes me sad that people who think like you exist. Have you no heart? I sincerely hope that you never tragically lose anyone in your life. I can’t imagine the pain of a mother whose son has died in a war she didn’t support.
It’s just plain sad the way both sides are using her. But at least the left is pretending to be nice.
Tilting at windmills as someone put it in the other thread.
You’re dead to nuts on this account, despite what the conspiracy theorists like to think.
Have any of these people been to TX in August? Why Bush would want to vacation here is beyond me. It’s about three thousand degrees with 110% humidity. If I had to be part of that press corps I would chew my own foot off, just for the entertainment value.
If Bush want to rid of Sheehan, all he has to do is cut his vacation short.
As soon as you start using your dead son as a political prop, you lose some points with me. She is exploiting his death for her own political purposes (it seems to me that her son didn’t share these views, either, if he re-enlisted to fight in the war). I don’t have much sympathy for that.
Also, how is it more painful that she lost her son in a war she didn’t support? Would it be less painful to lose a son in a war she did support? Are you saying her political views make this loss even more tragic? Does a conservative mother who loses a son get less sympathy from you?
As someone whose husband is in the Marine Corps, and who was called up already once in this damn fool war, here’s what I say.
From my experience it’s been much easier for the women to see their husbands go over when they believed it was a “noble cause” or that he would come home a “hero”. Neither I nor my husband believe this. Thus, for us (me in particular) I think would have been harder, had anything happened, to believe that a vibrant life was snuffed out for nothing, than to honestly believe it was for a greater cause.
I know it’s hard to understand, but at least people who support the war have that belief to hang on to. I have the utmost sympathy for any mother who has lost her son, be it in the war, or stateside. My oldest brother was killed by a drunk, and I think the hardest thing to grasp is the uselessness of it.
I hope I’m clear, but I know I’m not. Sorry.
Conspiracy? I never said it was a conspiracy. You can find that comment in most major newspapers. August is a slow news month. You’ve got a bunch of reporters with little to do. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a natural occurance.
We’ve been over this ad nauseum in Liberal’s Pit thread. He grew up in Texas and spent most of his adult life there. His wife is born and raised in Texas and his daughters were born there, too. That’s where is freakin’ house is, for God’s sake. Plus, it gives him a photo op of being a “real guy” clearing brush.
And don’t forget the presidential logistics. Most presidents have a “second White House” somewhere, and it takes a lot of work to make that place secure. It’s much easier for him to go to his ranch for a month than to set up yet another secure location for him to get away to. And, this is a working vacation.
Saying he has no reason to vacation there is just idiotic nonsense.
I’m sure he’d like her to be gone, but it’s obviously lower on his priority list. Besides, if he did cut his vacation short, THAT would be a real story. “BUSH FLEES FROM GRIEVING MOM” would be all over the newspapers. That’s much worse PR than letting Ms Sheehan’s story die a natural death with the end of summer.
It appears to me that many people, including more than a few who post in these forums, are ignorant of the fact that Mrs. Sheehan’s request for a new audience with President Bush is due to her belief that new information regarding the war in Iraq shows that the reasons once given for engagement are questionable if not outright fabrications. AFAIK, she at one time accepted that the war was necessary and/or for a good purpose, and she accepted her son’s decision to be a part of the armed forces. With new information at her disposal, she now believes that her son, and indeed the entire country, was deceived, and thus that he lost his life needlessly, and she wants to personally query the President about his statements, etc.
Just trying to help clarify. 
Dude, I was agreeing with you! I was saying that you were exactly right. Dead on. Perfect. Alrighty. Beautiful, and utterly fantastic. No need to dispute an agreement.
Sorry. Next time I’ll try harder to disagree. You…you… moderate thinking guy you!
Wow, I completely missed it. Based on the rest of your post, I thought you were being facetious in the first sentence. Sorry!