Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Cindy Sheehan 'Resigns' as Protest Leader (Free Republic mentioned)
AP via Houston Chronicle ^ | Tuesday, May 29, 2007 | Angela K. Brown

Posted on 05/29/2007 8:25:01 AM PDT by kristinn

FORT WORTH, Texas — Cindy Sheehan, the soldier's mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush's ranch, says she's done being the public face of the movement.

"I've been wondering why I'm killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush," Sheehan told The Associated Press by phone Tuesday while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California.

"I'm going home for awhile to try and be normal," she said.

In what she described as a "resignation letter," Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the "Daily Kos" blog: "Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it.

"It's up to you now."

Sheehan began a grass roots peace movement in August 2005 when she camped outside Bush's Crawford ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with the president about her son's death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.

Cindy Sheehan's protest started small but swelled to thousands and quickly drew national attention. Over the next two years, she initially drew huge crowds as she spoke at protest events. But she also drew criticism for some actions, such as meeting with Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leftist president.

"I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called "Face" of the American anti-war movement," Sheehan wrote in the diary.

Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.

"Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply," Taylor said Tuesday. "Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger."

When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. "However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used," she wrote.

Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement "that often puts personal egos above peace and human life."

But she said the most devastating conclusion she had reached "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think."

Sheehan told The Associated Press that she had considered leaving the peace movement since last summer while recovering from surgery.

Then she decided on Memorial Day to step down and spend more time with her three other children. She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because it was Casey's birthday. He would have been 28.

"We've accomplished as much here as we're going to," Sheehan said Tuesday, saying she was leaving to change course. "When we come back it definitely won't be with the peace movement with marches, with rallies and with protests. It will be more humanitarian efforts."

Last year, with $52,500 in insurance money received after her son's death, Sheehan bought 5 acres near downtown Crawford as a permanent site for protests.

"Camp Casey has served its purpose. It's for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas?" she wrote.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antiwar; cindysheehan; dailykos; frinthenews; leftists; pajamapeoplerule; sheehan; sheehanigans
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 141 next last
To: kristinn

You might have a future as a diplomat. ;-)


81 posted on 05/29/2007 10:03:02 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (The Reds went Green, but the goal remains the same.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jake The Goose
She lost her child.

How one respnds to tragedy is a personal choice.

Cindy made hers. . .and if she engenders a visceral, hateful response to her own efforts to diminish the loss of others who like her; are suffering their own tragedies; so be it.

. . .

82 posted on 05/29/2007 10:03:21 AM PDT by cricket (If you want to lose a mile; give a Lib an inch. . .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

My compliments, Kristinn. You’re a class act all the way.

On some level I despise the woman deeply, but she’s also one pitiful human being, used by people more evil than she could have conceived.


83 posted on 05/29/2007 10:03:42 AM PDT by Titan Magroyne ("Shorn, dumb and bleating is no way to go through life, son." Yeah, close enough.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lonesome in Massachussets
She's been living in a studio apartment owned by the two lawyers who hung a soldier effigy from the rafters of another rental property they own.

Let's see how "caring" these peace and social justice people are about Cindy now that she's no longer useful.

84 posted on 05/29/2007 10:04:38 AM PDT by Doctor Raoul (What's the difference between the CIA and the Free Clinic? The Free Clinic knows how to stop leaks.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

Your “healing” comments were classy. Well done.


85 posted on 05/29/2007 10:06:05 AM PDT by Clam Digger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
Nice job, kristinn! You're a skilled diplomat.

(and I mean that in a good way)

86 posted on 05/29/2007 10:06:39 AM PDT by LikeLight (tagline expired - do you wish to renew?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jake The Goose

It’s how she disparages what her son stood for that is disgusting about this ‘woman’. She has done the verbal equivalent of urinating on his grave and memory.


87 posted on 05/29/2007 10:08:17 AM PDT by Clam Digger
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

Is anyone other then me somewhat surprised that this resignation would come so soon after they discovered all those funds missing from her Crawford Texas Office?

Me thinks she is going on the lamb LOL


88 posted on 05/29/2007 10:08:26 AM PDT by Shots (Loose lips sink ships)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
I'm glad you're a spokesman for Free Republic.....

.. you formed the right balance in your statements.

89 posted on 05/29/2007 10:10:13 AM PDT by Guenevere (Duncan Hunter for President, 2008!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cbkaty
So she is not responsible for her actions......she gets an eternal pass regardless of her treachery?

I think that there is a significant portion of "lost her mind" in there, which others played upon and manipulated, and the MSM carefully edited. As Kristinn notes, there were people who did everything that they could to keep her in that state. If it was simple treachery and not madness, I don't think you'd have heard her protest the "Federal occupation of New Orleans" after Katrina.

90 posted on 05/29/2007 10:12:09 AM PDT by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 67 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket Maybe if that idiot stopped snuggling up with America's enemies she wouldn't be "hated". Idiot.
91 posted on 05/29/2007 10:12:57 AM PDT by rbosque (L)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Shots

here is teh back up info on my claim above

TEXAS.
There are allegations of money mismanagement and threats of court action, and members are now leaving the group sponsored by Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, the adopted hometown of President Bush. The Crawford Peace House has lost its corporate charter with the state, and a former member who has rights to the name is now threatening legal action. The organization found its origins from the work of Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war protester.

http://www.copilevitz-canter.com/index.php?action=view&id=133&module=newsmodule&src=%40random42bac479188d7


92 posted on 05/29/2007 10:13:09 AM PDT by Shots (Loose lips sink ships)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: Clam Digger

I know - I was just thinking that the loss of her son drove her over the edge.

I also doubt this woman’s intelligence - I know she has been used and led around by some very nasty political hacks.

She is a pawn - in the worst way -


93 posted on 05/29/2007 10:15:10 AM PDT by Jake The Goose
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

This isn’t over with. Cindy’s a publicity whore, and it’s a safe bet she’ll find other ways to make a public ass out of herself. Just wait.


94 posted on 05/29/2007 10:16:04 AM PDT by reagan_fanatic (Put illegals on ICE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Doctor Raoul
"Let's see how "caring" these peace and social justice people are about Cindy now that she's no longer useful."

The leftists still support Cindy, they just don't support her mission.

95 posted on 05/29/2007 10:17:58 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 84 | View Replies]

To: kristinn
Casey did indeed die for nothing
This is the most amazing thing to me. Her son obviously believed in what he was doing and died for what he believed in but his own mother posthumously calls him a liar, over and over again.
96 posted on 05/29/2007 10:30:20 AM PDT by samtheman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: goldstategop

They are positively PRO-Palestinian war. They are NOT a peace movement. Where is their rally to protest kidnappings, suicide bombings, tortures, and beheadings?

Some even carry “I support the Iraqi insurgency” banners.


97 posted on 05/29/2007 10:43:19 AM PDT by weegee (Libs want us to learn to live with terrorism, but if a gun is used they want to rewrite the Const.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: samtheman; kristinn
Well said, kristinn.

Samtheman, that statement stood out to me, as well. "was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think."

That is one truly lost and confused person. Casey did not die for nothing. I'd say she has a long road to acceptance of her son's sacrifice for this country.
98 posted on 05/29/2007 10:43:35 AM PDT by Girlene
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: kristinn

Here in WI, she has as much credibility as Steven Avery.


99 posted on 05/29/2007 10:44:34 AM PDT by ChadGore (VISUALIZE 62,041,268 Bush fans. We Vote.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Jake The Goose

Yeah, and leave Axis Sally and Lord Haw Haw alone too.

She palls around with Communist dictators.

She offered to hit her own son with the family car before he was deployed.

She is clearly off her rocker. But she was unbalanced long before her son died. He enlisted, she opposed that decision.


100 posted on 05/29/2007 10:44:49 AM PDT by weegee (Libs want us to learn to live with terrorism, but if a gun is used they want to rewrite the Const.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 61-8081-100101-120 ... 141 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson