Posted on 08/30/2005 12:38:16 PM PDT by Ooh-Ah
Did an ABC staffer insert the following lines in an email sent by celebrity antiwar mother Cindy Sheehan?
''Am I emotional? Yes, my firstborn was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel." That is what Sheehan is claiming.
If you don't believe that explanation -- if you don't believe an ABC staffer set about to put anti-Semitic words into Cindy Sheehan's mouth -- then your hero, my liberal friends, is a raging, ignorant anti-Semite. Sorry, but what are you doing hanging with that crowd?
I am as sympathetic to Cindy Sheehan's loss as the next mother. When I heard of her plight, while on vacation with my own children, my heart ached. Why not simply meet with her, I thought -- and wrote, like the other liberal columnists -- instead of going on a bike ride to nowhere?
I am the last person to "swift boat" a mother who lost her son in this war. I don't blame anyone, man or woman, for being "emotional." I have certainly seen the charge used to belittle women many too many times, myself included, with less justification than in this case.
But I will not stand silent and see anti-Semitism masked as opposition to Israel and Israel blamed for George Bush's mistakes, if that's what they are. She did say this, apparently:
"What they're saying, too, is like, it's OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons. But Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons. ... It's OK for Israel to occupy Palestine ... for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it's not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. They're a bunch of (expletive) hypocrites."
Anyone who cannot tell the difference, in any terms, between Israel on the one hand and Syria and Iran on the other is not someone who, as my grandmother would put it, is "good for the Jews" -- or for the country, I'd like to add.
I have been speaking to Jewish groups around the nation for the last year, and this is what I have been warning them. It will come to this: Israel will be blamed, which means Jews will be blamed.
There are some who resist these equations. They pretend they can blame Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, a state created out of the dust of 6 million Jews murdered, and say it has nothing to do with Jews. I do not believe this. I am not from the powerless generation of the Holocaust, the ones who watched the newsreels of the children on the S.S. St. Louis being turned away, because American Jews couldn't get their cousins in -- but the next one.
Go to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and on your second visit, spend time in my favorite room, the one with the newspapers that make clear what everyone knew. My generation does politics, but we are not so powerful as to control George Bush. Hardly. More power rests in the gas tank.
It is ludicrous to suggest that Casey died for Israel, but it is worse to lionize Cindy Sheehan without confronting the anti-Semitism that seems to be accepted not even beneath the surface. If her allies really believe ABC was out to frame her, where is the investigation? Where is the staffer who could include such language? And what of the equation of Israel with Syria and Iran, a statement too foolish to debate? Why isn't anyone concerned about that?
Or, rather, why is it only the right?
There are lots of people in the middle right now, watching bad news streaming out of Iraq, watching Marine National Guardsmen who weren't supposed to be serving, much less dying, coming home in boxes. There seems to be no end in sight. Two of the first Republicans to urge the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan were both likely 2008 presidential contenders, Chuck Hagel and George Allen.
Symbols matter. For better or for worse, they help to define movements.
If the "antiwar movement" in America is defined, even remotely, as an anti-Israel movement, it will fail. That is certain to me.
If I believed in conspiracy theories, I'd think that the right would like nothing better than to have Cindy Sheehan lead it for just that reason.
They might be laughing all the way to the bank about the embrace of her by the so-called liberal media.
To tell the truth, it's just what I'm afraid of.
To find out more about Susan Estrich, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
Susan Pestrogen partially gets some brains at 7/11???
What a shocking surprise!
Better than not getting any improvement in that dept, I guess.
Yes, "empirically." That means with verifiable proof, not opinion.
Adj: depending or based on experience or observation. Also: subject to verification by observation or experiment.
OK. So, I was right. I saw those two (Blanco and that imbecil Nagin) nincompoops on TV (observation) and my experience was/is that they're incompetent and should be removed.
Hey, I learned a new word!
Thanks.
Glad to have helped expand your vocabulary. Yet nothing you wrote here answered what I asked you.
Again, where is your empirical evidence/proof that Estrich was lying in this column?
Yes, she was lying and that bozo Nagin too.
From what I have seen on TV, NO looks much like a third world country. Don't you agree?
Then Explain Janet Reno and Helen Thomas.
What the...? I have no idea what you are talking about. Where is the proof that she is lying in this article? I don't care about anything other than this particular article.
You said she's lying. Where?
"You said she's lying. Where?"
In the article. Read it.
Susan is a commie lier. She's not a republican. She has a consistent record on lying.
The article above contains many lies if you would care to read it.
I did read it. You are offering an opinion based on the fact that you don't like her. That's fine. She's not a favorite of mine.
The amount of empirical proof you've offered? None.
That will be all.
"She's not a favorite of mine."
We agree then. :)
I have to start using that empiricalist word too. I like new words to be added to my vast storage of knowledge. :)
At least we agree that she's a commie lier and has lied repeatedly in this article as she did during the last presidential election.
The important thing to remember is that she's not on our side.
Take care now.
Helen Thomas is the exception that proves the rule.
Susan Estrich is definitely a liberal, no question about it. Communist? Maybe so.
It doesn't change the fact that IN THIS ARTICLE, she is correct.
You better not read anything from Christopher Hitchens. Your head would explode.
What is the matter with you people?
Ever heard the saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day? Think of this as one of Susan's rare moments of clarity.
Oh, and by the way, I noticed that you didn't actually point out any falsehood in the article she wrote here. Thanks for proving my point.
Me too, and it looks like Susan's got this one...
They might be laughing all the way to the bank about the embrace of her by the so-called liberal media.
To tell the truth, it's just what I'm afraid of.
LOL, she has a point. Cindy and let's not forget Howard Dean are bad news for the Democrats.
But that will do…
Sometimes this woman actually uses the dem community brain for good.
Come over to the right, Susan. It's where you belong. Just a few more aha's and you'll be one of us.
Come over to the right, Susan. It's where you belong. Just a few more aha's and you'll be one of us.
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