[Rummyfan]

Steyn Ping!

[Rummyfan]

Ping!

[kevkrom]

Mrs Sheehan is now very anti-war

It's not often I have to correct Steyn, but Sheehan has always been very "anti-war" (or at least, anti-Bush and by extension anti-any war under Bush's watch); it's just that she is now willing to exploit her son's name to further her cause rather than respect his wishes.

[BibChr]

it woke up motion-picture personality Viggo Mortensen, who flew to Crawford on a pilgrimage to Mrs Sheehan

Oh, Myrtle, what a ponce.

Dan
Biblical Christianity BLOG

[eureka!]

marking for later, leisurely read...

[Alexander Rubin]

Steyn PING!

[SaintDismas]

Population 690, man I'm itchin to watch Hee-Haw re-runs....lol

[nicmarlo]

ping!

The problem for the Democratic party is that the Cindys are now the loudest voice: Michael Moore, Howard Dean, moveon.org, and Air America, the flailing liberal radio network distracting attention from its own financial scandals by flying down its afternoon host Randi Rhodes to do her show live from Camp Casey. The last time I heard Miss Rhodes she was urging soldiers called up for Iraq to refuse to go — i.e., to desert — and entertaining theories that 9/11 was Bush’s Reichstag fire.

On unwatched Sunday talk shows you can still stumble across the occasional sane responsible Dem. But, in the absence of any serious intellectual attempt to confront their long-term decline, all the energy on the Left is with the fringe.

[q_an_a]

On FNS one of the commentators also said, "This Cindy story is bad for the DomocRATS. It makes the case "Weak on Defense" and it won't stop with the end of summer it will last till the next election."

[TChris]

A most brilliant summary of the lunacy that is the Cindy Sheehan protest. At least radical bait such as hers draws out the wing nuts en masse for all to identify.

The more sane and thoughtful among us need to voice our support for honorable and heroic troops serving the highest of ideals, to give the priceless gifts of life and liberty at the risk, and sometimes cost, of their very lives.

[The Phantom FReeper]

Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterise them as ‘children’. If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.

I could not have expressed this sentiment better. The leftists' condescension toward our military members is infuriating.

[wayoverontheright]

Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterise them as ‘children’. If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.

I thought that one deserved repeating.

[gridlock]

Christine Lahti

Viggo Mortensen

Add two more names to the list of people I will never pay to see in a movie theater or watch on TV.

[writmeister]

Still, she’s a mother. And, if you’re as heavily invested as Ms Dowd in the notion that those ‘killed in Iraq’ are ‘children’, then Mrs Sheehan’s status as grieving matriarch is a bonanza. I agree with Mrs Ryan: they’re not children in Iraq; they’re thinking adults who ‘made a decision to join the Armed Forces and defend our country’. Whenever I’m on a radio show these days, someone calls in and demands to know whether my children are in Iraq. Well, not right now. They range in age from five to nine, and though that’s plenty old enough to sign up for the jihad and toddle into an Israeli pizza parlour wearing a suicide-bomb, in most advanced societies’ armed forces they prefer to use grown-ups. That seems to be difficult for the Left to grasp. Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterise them as ‘children’. If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing. I get many emails from soldiers in Iraq, and they sound a lot more grown-up than most Ivy League professors and certainly than Maureen Dowd, who writes as if she’s auditioning for a minor supporting role in Sex and the City. The infantilisation of the military promoted by the Left is deeply insulting to America’s warriors but it suits the anti-war crowd’s purposes. It enables them to drone ceaselessly that ‘of course’ they ‘support our troops’, because they want to stop these poor confused moppets from being exploited by the Bush war machine.

Simply magnificent!

[blackie]

Steyn Ping!

[thulldud]

If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the Oval Office shagpile and chow down on Bill Clinton, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee ‘child’ who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.

Ah, Steyn shines again....

[syriacus]

What a great column! Thanks for posting it.

Steyn is correct when he says our soldiers are not the fictitious helpless children that Cindy describes.

Cindy doesn't even seem to care about real small children, those in Iraq.

If Cindy saw an insurgent who was about to kill children with a bomb, and Cindy saw that a soldier had the insurgent in his gunsights, would she tell the soldier to walk away or let the soldier shoot the bomber?

[kalee]

Spot on, as he usually is.

[blueknight]

Thanks for the ping. Steyn keeps hitting them out of the park.

[KC_Conspirator]

Absolutely incredible article.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Still, she’s a mother. And, if you’re as heavily invested as Ms Dowd in the notion that those ‘killed in Iraq’ are ‘children’, then Mrs Sheehan’s status as grieving matriarch is a bonanza. I agree with Mrs Ryan: they’re not children in Iraq; they’re thinking adults who ‘made a decision to join the Armed Forces and defend our country’.

The left is arrogant, superficial, and negative. The left grasps at any opportunity to patronize serious adults.

Whenever I’m on a radio show these days, someone calls in and demands to know whether my children are in Iraq. Well, not right now. They range in age from five to nine, and though that’s plenty old enough to sign up for the jihad and toddle into an Israeli pizza parlour wearing a suicide-bomb, in most advanced societies’ armed forces they prefer to use grown-ups.

That's gonna leave a mark . . .