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.
"swift boat"
"Swift boat," when used as a verb, means getting the truth to the public without the aid of old media.
They might be laughing all the way to the bank about the embrace of her by the so-called liberal media.
Susan is a lurker at FR!
Pity. She has more in common with the Islamists than she knows."
I wonder if there is anyone else on this thread that finds your post as offensive as I did?
Mother Sheehan is about to go down in flames.
Liberal media is beginning to distance themselves before they go along.
that picture is a full body shiver.
Have to agree with poor Susan on this one. Maybe she isn't as bad as I thought.
Yeah nice picture of her, love the smile. I pretty much agree with you about how shallow it is to criticise appearance, but I make one exception. I think it is totally impossible not to wince at and make fun of how Helen Thomas looks.
And most of the Jews I've known are liberal democrats. Go figure.
I have been stumped by that for years also. It defies any reason and logic that I ever knew existed, but its as true as can be.
ROFL
Now now, we're just having a little fun with our anonymity here. There's a difference between what we'll say in public rather than what's in our heads. That's the difference between comlibs and conservatives...we gots class. And, I'll bet you're hot, hot, hot!
Screechy Susan the Harpy has overdosed on Kool-aid again.
She also shows how ignorant she is of all things military, just like the rest of the lamestream media. There's no such thing as a "Marine National Guardsman." Susan, you flaming idiot, it's "Marine Reserve!" There's two kinds of National Guard, Army and Air!
But why am I yelling at someone who is a graduate of the Acme School of Journalism and Basketweaving? She's so stupid (not to mention butt-ugly) she'll never learn.
Maybe everyone was talking about her personality and whiny voice. Because she cornered the market on ugly there too.
Just trying to help :)
You two owe me a monitor.
"If so, please point out a lie."
Susan Estrich.
She's a commie. Read it here on FR and seen her on TV spewing anti-American lies. She's a leftist not to be trusted what she says or writes about.
I don't understand you! Everybody knows on FR that she's a democrat of the worst types. This has been known for years on this forum. What is the matter with you people?
Frodo refused to give her the ring back?
"Very few people did [read], apparently."
No need the read it. We all know here she's a liying commie and an enemy of president Bush and Conservatives.
What's the matter with you people? Have you all turned into commies?
Susan's main point in this article (and she provides plenty of evidence to back up her claim) is that Cindy Sheehan is "a raging, ignorant anti-Semite." Do you disagree with her assessment?
You're an ignorant fool and an embarrassment to this forum.
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