From The Right-A false idol

By Steve Tefft

Cindy Sheehan would be a more sympathetic figure if she weren't such a crackpot.

Sorry to criticize the Angry Left's latest Joan of Arc, but truth is truth. The Gold Star mother from California, whom the media quickly fitted for a halo after she began her sit-in outside President Bush's Texas ranch, would be more compelling if she didn't spout virulent, antiwar propaganda that makes Michael Moore seem reasonable.

Things like: “America has been killing people ... since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction.”

Or: “This country is not worth dying for.”

Or: “We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden ... 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through...”

Or: “We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now.”

Or: “The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush.”

Or: “You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of ‘Palestine' and you'll stop terrorism.”

Or: “I want (Bush) to tell me just what was the noble cause Casey died for? Was it freedom and democracy? Bull----! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East.”

See what I mean? American “imperialism?” Get Israel out of “Palestine?” Bush is the world's “biggest terrorist?” How is she to be taken seriously, even allowing for the obvious and understandable pain caused by the loss of her son Casey in Iraq?

The answer is Sheehan can't be taken seriously; not when she turns what should be her private grief into a public, antiwar jihad; not when her story is hyped and marketed by a radical public relations firm (Fenton Communications), and not when she welcomes the support of the vilest antiwar elements. MoveOn.Org, which famously counseled “restraint” in the days following 9/11 and then opposed our actions in Afghanistan, has coordinated much of the Sheehan siege. Another Sheehan backer – a group called Code Pink: Women for Peace – participated in a mock “war crimes” trial earlier this year that produced a statement calling the Iraqi insurgence “legitimate and justified.” What irony: Cindy Sheehan's friends now support the very people who killed Cindy Sheehan's son.

And why would Mr. Bush want to meet – for a second time – with someone who calls him “that lying bastard” and “that maniac?” Sheehan doesn't want a meeting. She wants to scream at the president and then turn that into another antiwar totem.

To put it simply, Cindy Sheehan is the latest blunt instrument with which the Angry Left seeks to undermine the war and demonize the president. Richard Clarke, the Downing Street memo, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame and others came before Sheehan. More will follow. And the shame of it all is that, after Sheehan's 15 minutes of fame runs out, her new friends will drop her like a stone and “move on” to other instruments of political destruction ... probably leaving Sheehan more bitter than she is now and wondering what hit her.

Consider the pain the Sheehan spectacle is causing other Gold Star parents who still support the war. How must they feel when told their sons and daughters died for “American imperialism?” We know that much of Sheehan's extended family wants no part of her display; they released a statement accusing her of “promoting her own personal agenda.”

We also have the eloquent words of Ronald Griffin, whose son, Army Spc. Andrew Grifin, was killed in northern Iraq more than two years ago. Mr. Griffin wrote recently that “... Mrs. Sheehan, with adept public relations tactics, has succeeded in elevating herself above the rest of us. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida declared that Mrs. Sheehan is now the symbol for all parents who have lost children in Iraq. Sorry, senator. Not for me.”

Then there is Linda Ryan, mother of Marine Cpl. Marc Ryan, who died in Ramadi last November. Mrs. Ryan said, “I would tell Cindy Sheehan that, as one mother to another, I do realize your loss is your loss and there's nothing you can do to heal from it ... but (Sheehan)'s going about this not realizing how many people she's hurting. When she refers to anyone killed in Iraq, she's referring to my son. She doesn't have anything to say about what happened to my son.”

I believe Linda Ryan and Ronald Griffin speak for hundreds of other military families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq. It's unfortunate that their words and comportment aren't deemed “news,” but given the class with which they speak of their dead loved ones, I'd guess they prefer it that way.

 

And, then there is this Associated Depressed photo op

Here's a touching scene, featuring Cindy Sheehan and the Reverend Al Sharpton, in front of crosses, looking solemn and sad.

 

But,

 

is it actually what it appears to be?

 

Or,

 

is it just another

 

news media

 

circus?

 

Now let's zoom out and see the media swarm around this manufactured event: