Posted on 08/19/2005 1:28:39 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
'No one is so senseless as to choose of his own will war rather than peace, since in peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war the fathers bury their sons."
So spoke Croesus, king of Lydia, to Cyrus, king of the Persians in 550 B.C., as told by the Greek historian Herodotus. It should be noted that Croesus, having just been defeated in battle at the hands of Cyrus, was pleading for his life, so his eloquence may have been somewhat self-serving. But the point is that it's especially tragic for parents to see their children die prematurely, from any means.
Cindy Sheehan is the woman camped out at George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, demanding a private meeting to harangue the president about what she calls his "murderous" war in Iraq. Sheehan's son, U.S. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed in action in Sadr City, Iraq, in April 2004. All Americans of goodwill sympathize with her loss. Her grief is understandable. Thousands of other parents have suffered similar losses since 9/11, and millions before that, throughout our nation's history.
But Sheehan's grief doesn't lend any special credibility to her political beliefs. While she's free to speak her mind, those who disagree with her are every bit as free to criticize her views and tactics.
She's the one picking a fight. Sheehan isn't just a critic; she's a hysterical Bush-hater. Speaking on Aug. 8, she fired up a crowd of sympathetic activists calling Bush a "lying bastard" and "filth-spewer," among other things. And when she gets to Crawford, she raved, "I'm gonna tell them, 'You get that evil maniac out here . . .' And I'm gonna say, 'And you tell me what the noble cause is that my son died for.' And if he even starts to say freedom and democracy, I'm gonna say, bull----. 'You tell me the truth. You tell me that my son died for oil. You tell me that my son died to make your friends rich. You tell me that my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East. You get America out of Iraq; you get Israel out of Palestine.' " I doubt if even Bill Clinton could have charmed this woman.
Listen, there may be wing nuts like Michael Moore who believe this kind of enraged, simplistic drivel but none who deserve to be taken seriously. Imagine John Kerry talking like this during the presidential campaign.
Casey Sheehan's sacrifice for his country doesn't oblige the rest of us to suffer, in silence, his mother's ranting. Other mothers who have lost sons and daughters in this war and who continue to believe in the cause and support the president have used their standing to appropriately criticize Sheehan.
Sheehan, a self-described liberal Democrat who opposed the Iraq war long before her son died, is co-founder of an activist group called Gold Star Families for Peace. On its Web site is the familiar trident "peace symbol," dating back to the "Ban the Bomb" movement in England during the 1950s, the standard insignia of leftist anti-war activists ever since.
Gold Star Families for Peace is not to be confused with American Gold Star Mothers, an organization created in 1929, inspired by President Woodrow Wilson's authorization in, 1918, of the display of gold stars on the service flags and armbands of family members to honor soldiers who died during World War I. On its Web site, American Gold Star Mothers has posted this disclaimer: "Cindy Sheehan is currently in the news. She and her organization have no connection whatever with American Gold Star Mothers, Inc. We . . . do not engage in political activities. We do support our troops. After all, they are our children."
Casey Sheehan joined the Army of his own volition. Then he re-enlisted to serve in Iraq. His mother might have preferred that he join the American Friends Service Committee, a pacifist Quaker organization opposed to this and all other wars. He didn't.
Before he went to Iraq, Cindy Sheehan says she offered to take him to Canada, to desert the Army. As if a 23-year-old soldier, an adult, needs to be taken by his mother's hand to run away from his duty, his responsibilities and his country. Casey rejected her offer. The gesture, if it really happened as she claims, speaks volumes about Cindy Sheehan's ideology and state of mind. Her grief has metastasized into bitterness and rage as she turns her son's coffin into her own soapbox. Is that what Casey would have wanted? Or is this all about her?
Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA.
And in appeasement and inaction....no one is left to bury everyone else.
They ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they're not. They are the hate-filled, "Get Bush" crowd members who have now turned Cindy Sheehan's publicity stunt into a circus sideshow.
Sheehan's son, Casey, was a U.S. soldier who was killed last year in Iraq. She has staged a sit-in near the Crawford, Texas, ranch of President George W. Bush and claimed that the president killed her son.
Cindy Sheehan became an overnight darling of cable television, national newspapers and, of course, the left-wing anti-war groups. They should have stopped there.
Instead, they sensed an opportunity to parlay this woman's grief into their own selfish partisan purposes, but they ruined Sheehan's credibility.
First came the revelation that she already had an audience with the president last year in a condolence session with other families who had lost loved ones in Iraq. The Vacaville (Calif.) Reporter, Sheehan's hometown newspaper, recently reprinted an interview with her from that time.
Instead of harshly criticizing the president, she said "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
That contradiction was just the tip of an embarrassing iceberg. Time magazine revealed that Sheehan's personal life has been in tatters. The publication said she lost her job because of frequent absences, separated from her husband in June, has been urged by her surviving son to return to California and has been accused by another relative of promoting her own "personal agenda at the expense of her son's good name."
And much sympathy for Sheehan was replaced with pity after her blog-based press conference last weekend, when she blamed the United States for world terrorism, claimed the United States "would be a fascist state" if not for the Internet, called for the impeachment of Bush and said he should go to jail for "war crimes."
If Sheehan was performing solo in this sorry soap opera, one could almost excuse her outrageous remarks as naïve.
Instead, her performance was orchestrated by a pair of Democratic operatives, Bob Fertik (co-founder of Democrats.com) and Joe Trippi (who managed the presidential campaign of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean).
Add to that the support of the radical left-wing group Move-On.org and the mendacious filmmaker Michael Moore, and you've got a collection of full-time dissidents who felt no guilt over Sheehan's public humiliation.
America is not fooled. If Bush killed Sheehan's son, Casey, then so did the 29 Democratic senators who approved the Iraq war resolution in 2003, a list that included John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman.
But never mind the truth that a terrorist killed Casey.
Never mind that this charade may embolden terrorists in Iraq to fight longer against our brave volunteer military force. Never mind that Casey's sacrifice is overshadowed by this embarrassing spectacle. Soon, the cameras will be gone, the stories will stop, and Cindy Sheehan will go home.
But the radicals will find someone new to exploit and ignore the damage they cause.
Frank Beckmann is host of "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR (760 AM) from 9-11:30 a.m. Monday-Friday.
***...........We live in a period of history in which one of our major political parties is no longer motivated by a coherent ideology, but is energized by political nihilism. The Democrat Party, and the left in general, is in possession of an ideology that went bankrupt in the late 1960s with the end of the New Deal, big-government paradigm. They coasted for another 20 years or so on "feel-good" rhetoric, but with the Clintons, what emerged as the "unifying vision" within the Democrat Party wasn't a new ideology at all, but political nihilism -- cynicism, hatred, politics-of-personal destruction, moral ambivalence, anti-religion, anti-Americanism (i.e., being against everything that is good in America). Today's Democrat Party is identified more by what it is against than by what it is for, making it a reactionary party. About 20% of the electorat are hard-core political nihilists. Another 20% simply vote Democrat out of habit (union families, blacks, public employees). Another 8 or 9% are among the swing voters who simply vote Democrat for God-knows-why (probably ignorance). Cindy Sheehan is the poster child of the left's political nihilism.
The other thing which has given Cindy Sheehan noterity is that we now live in "Jerry Springerland." Personal loss in war is an intensely personal thing, where the personal agony used to be shared, if at all, within intimate circle of friends and family, where solace was received in places like one's church. Now, people tend to share their personal problems and conflicts in front of the entire world, via a voyeuristic media. It's unseemly, and horribly inappropriate to stick a camera in the face of a grieving mother and broadcast her personal anguish to the entire world. It's even more tacky and dysfunction to be a grieving mother who actually seeks that kind of attention. At that point, she becomes not a grieving mother tortured by unspeakable personal grief, but a media celebrity, or worse, a tool in someone's cynical political agenda. When she crosses the line to becomes a celebrity, normal, healthy people tend to start seeing her public display of "grief" as simply a publicity stunt. And what's even more despicable is that such a person is willing to be used as a shill by the political nihilists of our society. ..............***
http://my2cents.redstate.org/story/2005/8/18/135859/225
Your post prompted me to write a note of thanks to Rush as well.
"Dear Rush,
You've been on fire of late, and I'm so grateful.
Paul Begala maligned you, but he did worse to American Gold Star Mothers, when he said Cindy Sheehan was one of them. I guess it's no surprise Begala would attempt to co-opt and politicize this fine organization, considering what he and his ilk have done to a grieving, troubled woman like Cindy Sheehan.
http://www.goldstarmoms.com/agsm/Home/
"Cindy Sheehan is currently in the news. She and her organization have no connection whatever with American Gold Star Mothers, Inc. We are a 501 C(3) organization and, as such, do not engage in political activities. We do support our troops. After all, they are our children. "
Thank you"
And thank you to all those serving our country. The United States has wonderful people (and families) sacificing each day as they hold the line and fight terrorism around the world. God bless them all.
[St. Petersburg Times photo: Lara Cerri] Air Force airman Craig Baker sees his 2-month old son, Jacob for the first time after arriving from Afghanistan Thursday at Tampa International Airport. His wife, Autumn, holds their daughter, Lillian.
To ALL: It is important to remember this as Cincinatus' Wife wrote:
Casey Sheehan joined the Army of his own volition. Then he re-enlisted to serve in Iraq. His mother might have preferred that he join the American Friends Service Committee, a pacifist Quaker organization opposed to this and all other wars. He didn't.
Before he went to Iraq, Cindy Sheehan says she offered to take him to Canada, to desert the Army. As if a 23-year-old soldier, an adult, needs to be taken by his mother's hand to run away from his duty, his responsibilities and his country. Casey rejected her offer. The gesture, if it really happened as she claims, speaks volumes about Cindy Sheehan's ideology and state of mind. Her grief has metastasized into bitterness and rage as she turns her son's coffin into her own soapbox. Is that what Casey would have wanted? Or is this all about her?
Of course it's about her. While I do not agree with the whole Iraq mess, nor do I support Bush, I strongly believe that those that choose (the operative word) to serve do so with the full knowledge that they may be have to go to war. That is what the military does regardless of 'right' or 'wrong'...
Those are Rosen's words and he's right!
Interesting and apt observation. I was on the road Wednesday and happened to catch Jerry Springer on radio rant against Bush. The segment I caught was typical left boilerplate-- Karl Rove bad; Bush dumb. Then Springer said that George Bush's refusal to meet with Sheehan indicates a "lack of character".
Think about that. The man who brought us lesbian midgets and spouses who cheat on their partners with their relatives, is attacking the character of George Bush.
We should all be so lucky to have enemies like this....
Did he mention President Bush had a meeting with the Sheehan family?
Not that I recall....
Thanks for posting this. I lived in Denver for ten years and loved Mike Rosen's morning talk show. He's brilliant and very funny.
Thanks for the information.
It's a no-brainer why conservative talk radio is booming while LIBERAL talk radio falls flat.
Hmmmm.... intelligence, common sense, patriotism, faith in the ideals that gave birth to this country, a sense of humor, no bitter hatred ...
hmmm. *scratches head*
so why is it, again, that conservative talk radio flourishes while Air America didn't seem to work out? LOL!
The thing that really gets me about Cindy is that she so obvioiusly hated everythng Casey stood for and worked for, and did everything she could to undermine him and his mission while he was alive. There were probably other very serious issues between Cindy and Casey before he joined the Army, an act that must have really galled her, let alone the extent to which she must have been infuriated by his re-enlisting contrary to her deepest desires. From her view of America, he'd basically married the Devil's daughter and started having children with the Devil's daughter. That being the case, it would be very easy for her not to feel much real grief at all, but to be anxious to parade as much false "grief" as possible and use it as a weapon to slime Casey's memory and mission, which is exactly what she's doing.
Now she fraudulently, loudly, and lugubriously "grieves" about his death every time a TV camera is pointed at her, just like Bill Clinton "grieving" over Ron Brown's death. Even more vile, she's crassly appropriated Casey's heroic death and twisted it to attack everything he honorably stood for. In effect, as a way to express her real hatred for him and get posthumous revenge on him for his patriotism, she's installed a toilet on top of his grave, copiously used it herself, and invited thousands of other traitors to do the same. Utterly contemptible.
Since Cindy was involved in every far left, anti-American cause she could find long before Casey enlisted, she did everything she could to undermine him and his mission and encourage the Islamofascists to murder every American they could, just the way Nick Berg's father did.
Surprise!! The Islamofascists took that encouragement by those two evil people and murdered Nick Berg and Casey Sheehan. Short of pulling the trigger herself, "Mother Cindy" couldn't have done much more to kill Casey. That puts her right there beside Andrea Yates. What's far worse, she's now trying to make sure lots more Americans, thousands more, get killed by the Islamofascist subhumans.
Great post.
`
Just like LIBERAL dummies that put "Gun Control" posters in their windows. They put a target on themselves and the rest of us.
It's hard to state the obvious sometimes, isn't it!Casey Sheehan's mom is arrogant, like all leftists - and her arrogance led her to activities the logical implication of which was the death of soldiers - in this case, the death of her own son.
Naturally she cannot allow herself to see that, so now she uses her son's casket as a platform from which to attempt to do the same thing to other women's sons.
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