Cindy Sheehan: modern day Tokyo Rose

The media circus around this Cindy Sheehan nonsense defies the imagination. One has only to tune into Shawn Hannity or Laura Ingraham or any other daily right-of-center talk show in order to be treated to countless examples of proud parents of dead servicemen and women phoning in to thank the hosts, thank President Bush, and to support the war effort in general. I mean, this happens so often that it is hardly even worth mention.

But then you take one look at the spectacle around this "look at me, feel sorry for me" publicity hound Cindy Sheehan, together with the vulgar, unseemly amount of media coverage this prima donna is getting -- and the only intellectually honest reaction can be to find this to be nothing short of astounding. Where is the media coverage of all of the pround parents who daily are speaking out about how they believe their children died for a worthy cause? Where are the cameras for these patriotic grieving parents? Where is CNN, where is MSNBC, where is Katie Couric??? They are at the "circus" in Crawford.

Where was the same media recently when the home of a Marine's grieving family was fire-bombed?? -- because of all the American flags in the yard! Where was the media outrage then?? Where was the sympathy for the grieving family. Where was the circus???

What is this perspective -- this obsession of a media who wants America to lose -- but which cries foul when a more reasonable network like Fox who at least takes an AMERICAN perspective, dares to call itself "fair and balanced"??

Answer: if you are looking in the msm for real balance, it is nowhere to be found. And to look at the spectacle we have been treated to every day -- it is clear that the the word is out: the big circus is in Crawford; the only thing missing elements are the elephants, clowns, and lion tamers. The single-minded focus of the world media's conspiring to use this self-centered woman -- who, yes, lost her son, but who also managed to overcome her "grief" to make multiple MoveOn.org commercials during the election season, and to become an instant media celebrity (one wonders when the book deal will be announced ) -- into some sort of symbol of "everymom" is a symptom of a parisitic sickeness that is slowly killing all that is good about this country. To call it disgusting is to do discredit to the word "disgust". This is participatory treason, being paraded before our very eyes.

Anyway, if my anger on this matter isn't coming through clearly, when I ran across David Horowitz' take on the Sheehan circus, it crystalized everything I had been thinking. So I simply had to include it here:

Cindy Sheehan: Symbol of a Psychological Warfare Campaign Against Her Own Country

On Huffington Post, Norman Lear wants to know if there is "anything Mrs. Sheehan is doing that would suggest to any reasonable person that this Gold Star mother doesn't support our troops, our country and the office of the President?" In a word, yes. From the beginning of her campaign she has been lying through her teeth about America's war to liberate Iraq, about America's relation to Saddam (which has never been that of puppet-master and controller as she maintains), and about the commander-in-chief of America's troops (who did not fabricate intelligence information to justify a "criminal war" as she had her manipulators claim).. Cindy Sheehan is the most prominent symbol and chief mouthpiece of a psychological warfare campaign against her own country in time of war that can only benefit its enemies on the field of battle. It is one thing to criticize a war policy. It is quite another to accuse your own country of creating the monster it went to war to remove and fabricating intelligence information to send American youth into battle to die for a lie -- which is what she has done. She has made herself a willing tool of anti-American forces in this country that want America to lose the war in Iraq and the war on terror generally. She is promoting a cause -- immediate withdrawal from Iraq -- that would lead to a bloodbath in the region and in the United States. She has joined forces with an Unholy Alliance on the other side in the epic battle for freedom in the Middle East and has shown that she will do and say anything to discredit the United States and its commander-chief -- acts which serve the enemy and endanger American lives. She is a disgrace to her brave son who gave his life for the freedom of ordinary Iraqis and the security of his countrymen. She has betrayed his sacrifice and embraced his enemies.

The minute I see the mainstream media giving an equal amount of focus on the countless families who -- rather than seeking make a self-serving publicity-seeking spectacle out of their tragedy -- come forward instead to support their lost children, their country, and the just cause of this war; then it will be worthy of my attention.

Until then, the daily freak show, with the bought and paid for paparazzi following this woman around all of Crawford and exploring the "depths" of what horrors must be going through poor tortured Cindy Sheehan's mind today -- ranks for me in interest beneath even what brand of makeup Michael Jackson is wearing today, or what is the latest on the Chandra Levy disappearance. Hell, reading the Public Legal Announcements in the want-ads section holds more interest for me than this. If it were not for the fact that the media's latest leftist-circuis-de-jour is even more evidence that our "free" press is collectively conspiring to do whatever is humanly possible to see that we lose this war, and that we are all someday forced at the barrel of Kalishnakovs to carry our Korans and wink at our girlfriend wearing her black 8th century burka -- it wouldn't even register on my radar screen. But it is important, not because of the story, but because it shows that we are being sold down the river by the elites. And that does garner my interest.

Watching this disgusting display on a daily basis makes me ashamed to be an American, and even leads my thoughts to an uglier place, where it occurs to me that true justice for Cindy Sheehan will be realized if and when she ends up trapped in a Saudi madrassa (or else stuck on a desert island with Michael Moore). In my book, either fate would be too good for her. But I would wish an even a worse fate for the legions of reporters who have nothing better to do with their day than to follow around this publicity hound masquerading as a mother (and at that, a mother who does not represent the majority of parents who believe in our worthy cause and who cherish the country that their sons and daughters are fighting and dying for). If there is such a thing as Karma, this media who would betray us all ought to be at ground zero if any Islamist attack that does succeed in this country -- because they would be part of the reason for that success.

So, in summary: to the msm lackeys who are perpetuating this fraud and this service to our sworn enemies-- stick the ANGER you are causing for a majority of your countrymen in your pipe and smoke it. And I hope you choke on it.

UPDATE: I managed to come across once again this recent Christopher Hitchens Slate article --and I must say it doesn't dissuade me from my stance about our disgraceful traitorous media:

Losing the Iraq War: Can the left really want us to? Another request in my in-box, asking if I'll be interviewed about Iraq for a piece "dealing with how writers and intellectuals are dealing with the state of the war, whether it's causing depression of any sort, if people are rethinking their positions or if they simply aren't talking about it." I suppose that I'll keep on being asked this until I give the right answer, which I suspect is "Uncle." There is a sort of unspoken feeling, underlying the entire debate on the war, that if you favored it or favor it, you stress the good news, and if you opposed or oppose it you stress the bad. I do not find myself on either side of this false dichotomy. I think that those who supported regime change should confront the idea of defeat, and what it would mean for Iraq and America and the world, every day. It is a combat defined very much by the nature of the enemy, which one might think was so obviously and palpably evil that the very thought of its victory would make any decent person shudder. It is, moreover, a critical front in a much wider struggle against a vicious and totalitarian ideology.

It never seemed to me that there was any alternative to confronting the reality of Iraq, which was already on the verge of implosion and might, if left to rot and crash, have become to the region what the Congo is to Central Africa: a vortex of chaos and misery that would draw in opportunistic interventions from Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Bad as Iraq may look now, it is nothing to what it would have become without the steadying influence of coalition forces. None of the many blunders in postwar planning make any essential difference to that conclusion. Indeed, by drawing attention to the ruined condition of the Iraqi society and its infrastructure, they serve to reinforce the point.

How can so many people watch this as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians? The New York Times ran a fascinating report (subscription only), under the byline of James Glanz, on July 8. It was a profile of Dr. Alaa Tamimi, the mayor of Baghdad, whose position it would be a gross understatement to describe as "embattled." Dr. Tamimi is a civil engineer and convinced secularist who gave up a prosperous exile in Canada to come home and help rebuild his country. He is one among millions who could emerge if it were not for the endless, pitiless torture to which the city is subjected by violent religious fascists. He is quoted as being full of ideas, of a somewhat Giuliani-like character, about zoning enforcement, garbage recycling, and zero tolerance for broken windows. If this doesn't seem quixotic enough in today's gruesome circumstances, he also has to confront religious parties on the city council and an inept central government that won't give him a serious budget. Question: Why have several large American cities not already announced that they are going to become sister cities with Baghdad and help raise money and awareness to aid Dr. Tamimi? When I put this question to a number of serious anti-war friends, their answer was to the effect that it's the job of the administration to allocate the money, so that there's little room or need for civic action. I find this difficult to credit: For day after day last month I could not escape the news of the gigantic "Live 8" enterprise, which urged governments to do more along existing lines by way of debt relief and aid for Africa. Isn't there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable "communities" have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable. And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame.

From Instapunk: http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=599

Stepping in it.

WHEN MOMS CRY. Since nobody else will say it, I will. This woman is having an ugly nervous breakdown, and if her family have any sense of dignity or propriety they will go to Texas and drag her home.

I understand the circumspection that has accompanied most commentary on the matter of Cindy Sheehan. She's a mother who (gulp) lost her son. Thus, even those who are deeply offended by her rhetoric express it indirectly. They blame the leftist hate machine which has obviously worked hard to exploit her, or they speak on behalf of the military mindset which is not flattered by the attempt to reduce their brave sacrifices to victimhood. You can see this kind of tact well executed by Michelle Malkin, Debra Saunders, and others all over the internet. Ms. Malkin and Bill O'Reilly discussed the matter on television and couldn't begin a single exchange without reiterating their profound sympathy for Ms. Sheehan. I appreciate their dilemma, but there are too many important points at issue here to let it go.

Yes, it is a terrible thing to lose a child. But I'm getting tired of hearing the rote assertion that it's the worst thing that can ever happen to you, you never get over it, and no one who hasn't had the experience can ever understand. It's as if this category of event, "lose a child," represents some kind of emotional tree-line which, once passed, automatically elevates a person into a new state of existence from which ordinary mortals are excluded. It's the Skull & Bones of parenthood, an elite membership which confers extraordinary privilege and exemption from all merely human judgment or criticism.

Pardon me, but that's a crock. On several levels. Anyone who has lived more than a few decades comes to understand that life is largely about loss. The longer we survive, the more we lose: grandparents, parents, friends, lovers, wives, husbands, family, pets, and any number of dreams, possessions, and ideals, including -- for many -- faith, hope, and love. The whole idea that there is a Publisher's Clearinghouse Jackpot of Loss is absurd and demeaning to the human spirit.

A relatively recent addition to our psychological jargon is the term emotional intelligence. Surely it's emotional idiocy to declare all instances of the generic event "lose a child" equal. The perception of "worst thing in the world" is easy to appreciate in the case of parents who lose a small child to abduction, murder, disease, or accident. There is the awareness that there was never any choice by the child, that there can be no compensation of any kind for the loss, and that in addition to the terrible void they must live with, the parents may also feel guilt for having failed to protect their helpless, innocent offspring from the twists of fate before they had a chance to live life.

It may seem mean-spirited to suggest, but I will, that even in these kinds of tragedies not every parent is equal. No matter how many times we dutifully repeat the mantra, many of us must suspect that there are parents who do get over their loss and damned quickly at that. We can also surmise that others learn not to look back with the same degree of agonizing intensity. Most hurts hurt less over time unless we choose to make them into a cross or an excuse. That's not bad. It's the source of human strength. We go on. We live through loss. Otherwise, no culture would survive earthquakes, floods, famines, epidemics, and wars.

Except for losing a child, of course. How many parents have we taught to cling tightly to their grief lest they feel less of it and enter a new purgatory of guilt for not being exquisitely sensitive enough to remain emotionally ruined for all their days?

For whatever reason, we have exalted grief in this nation to a supernatural force that must be honored and appeased rather than overcome. As recently as the Victorian era, infant and child mortality was so pervasive that few large families did not experience it. Before the age of modern medicine, sudden, unexpected death was an everyday companion of the living. They learned to control grief with defined periods of mourning in prescribed clothes and then to proceed with life. And they learned not to lose their faith and humility in the process.

Now we teach even our youngest children that grief is a devouring god to whom they must genuflect whenever the bad thing happens. Every incident at school -- fire, death, insect infestation -- is followed by an invasion of professional grief counselors who carefully implant the idea that what has happened will resonate through the rest of their lives like some gong of doom.

We have taught ourselves to view the grief-stricken as secular saints imbued with the mystery of new age stigmata, and we watch in awe as they bleed continuously from their invisible wounds. In their actions we consecrate what we cannot comprehend, and we collectively offer up to them the key to a kind of free-fire zone, in which they can act out all they want while we do their penance for them in hushed, admiring tones.

Has it helped? No. Are the eternally bleeding really saints? No. The evidence indicates that the death of a child tends to destroy marriages these days, promote substance abuse, vandalize careers, and perpetuate depression. Appeasing and worshipping grief strengthens the power of grief and causes people to lapse into self-absorbed obsessions.

But we must not blow the whistle on Cindy Sheehan? She has contrived to turn her son's death and the whole Iraq War into her own personal soap opera. This was all something done to her. By the President of the United States, no less. Let us take all our cameras to Texas and watch her bleed from her hands and feet. Nonsense. It's time for some plain talk.

Her plight is a very far cry from that of a mother who views the mutilated body of her six-year old daughter at the morgue. Cindy Sheehan's son was a man -- more a full-grown man than his mother is a full-grown woman -- and the sacrifice that was made was his, not hers, willingly given in return for compensations that made sense to him at the time he decided to join the military.

She does defame his life and his memory by behaving like a spoiled adolescent on the national stage, by lying, and by actively seeking to humiliate her (and our) Commander-in-Chief. We do her son no honor by pretending that her behavior is anything other than what it is -- a disgraceful exhibition of self-annihilating selfishness which reveals the sickness of the conviction that every loss is total, inconsolable, and license to revert to the infantile fantasy of a universe with ourselves at the center.

It's also sad and ironic that we entangle her tantrum with the concept of motherhood. Her accomplices in assaulting the national war effort are, lest we forget, of the political stripe which views motherhood as a game of craps, with every player free to plunk her fertilized egg on the "Pass" or "Don't Pass" line, depending on her whims of the moment. They believe that she is to feel NO grief for the innocent life she takes herself while retaining the infinite right to make the whole world accountable if the life she chooses to perpetuate should somehow perish before it reaches the age of mandatory commitment to nursing homes and Medicaid-financed euthanasia. How is this preferable to a short heroic life given freely as a gift for others, in the name of home and liberty?

This is perversion. And it's time somebody said it out loud. Cindy Sheehan, your son died a hero. Go home now and find some meaning in it that isn't just about you and the politics of those who hate their country.

Maureen Dowd, put that in your word processor and chew on it.

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