A Conservative Wrote My Feelings
To be honest, I haven’t said anything about Cindy Sheehan here simply because it seemed like everyone else was talking about her and so many liberals had already voiced how I felt and expressed it in much better words that I think I could have.
Just in case you didn’t know, I deeply respect Cindy, her courage and her dedication. I wish that I could believe that if I were in her position, I would be sitting there in her chair. I’m not even sure I’m brave enough to be one of those who’ve joined her — I keep thinking of practical things like paying my bills and keeping my job and quite frankly I think what Cindy is doing is far more important. It’s about time someone started trying to get the President’s attention to let him know that maybe things aren’t going as well as his minions are telling him. Quite frankly, I think she’s amazing, a heroine, a role model, and apparently I’m not alone — just look at all the people who have been brave enough to join her. Those people are my heroes too. Without people like them, nothing would ever change.
CNN.com - Bush motorcade passes anti-war mom’s protest - Aug 12, 2005
CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) — President Bush’s motorcade, en route to a political fund-raiser near his ranch, passed Friday by the site of Cindy Sheehan’s Iraq war protest where more than 100 people had gathered to support her.Sheehan — whose son, Casey, was killed five days after he arrived in Iraq last year at age 24 — held a sign that read: “Why do you make time for donors and not for me?”
I bring this up because I found this post at Brilliant at Breakfast written by a conservative and it so eloquently expressed my feelings about Cindy and those who want to discredit her. I’m so tired of seeing conservative right-wingers who just regurgitate rhetoric and propoganda who can’t do anything more than quote Rush and O’Reilly as their arguments for why they are right and anyone who doesn’t agree is wrong. I’m tired of seeing people on both sides of the party line who refuse to look at the big picture and realize that when you select your party on your voter registration, you aren’t signing your mind over to political brainwashing. No one is going to take your voters’ rights away if you say something bad about your party, it’s current platform, or even it’s head honcho. You are not betraying your party if you read or hear some fact that doesn’t agree with what you’ve been told. I’m tired of people ignoring facts that don’t fit with what they want to believe.
Anyway, here’s the post that made me think there is hope…a liberal and a conservative agreeing on something — we might be o.k. afterall…
-THE CUNNING REALIST-: Decency Is Not In Them
Even when something really outrages me, usually that outrage gives way to a bit of calm, measured thinking. With the Cindy Sheehan story, that’s not the case.
If one needed any further proof that this incarnation of “Republicans” and alleged conservatives includes a faction that has gone completely and tragically over the edge, the smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan is it. For those who might not be familiar with the details of this and are looking for an accurate, factual account, a good summary appears here.
The essence of the right-wing smear machine’s “outing” of Cindy Sheehan is her supposed flip-flop from supporting President Bush in 2004 to disapproving of him in 2005. As details of this have become clearer, it’s obvious the flip-flop is nothing more than a canard. But setting aside the Sheehan story for a moment, have any of the shameless smearsters seen the public opinion polls recently? Here’s some breaking news for them: a whole lot of Americans who supported Bush a year ago—including an increasingly large part of his “base”—have turned against him. And that includes many millions of people who haven’t lost a parent, child, or sibling in Iraq.
There are so many side issues of shamelessness and crass opportunism in this story it makes my head spin. Think about the gall of a political and media machine “accusing” a private citizen of changing her mind (imagine that!) about an elected and supposedly accountable public official. When did a private citizen supposedly changing her opinion about something rise to the same level as a flip-flop about firing anyone involved in the leaking a CIA agent’s name? At what point did the ability to change one’s mind about a politician become something to be ridiculed and accused of instead of cherished as a basic right? And it’s not as if in the past year we haven’t learned anything about the pre-war manipulation of intelligence, as well as the incompetent planning, that resulted in the death of Cindy Sheehan’s son and thousands of others like him.
Something else about this story that infuriates me is the vision of feckless, smarmy smearsters and cowards hiding behind keyboards in cities like Washington and New York (and yes, Miami), punching out electronic missives in a pathetic and desperate attempt to impugn the integrity of a woman sitting in the dust and August heat of Texas—a woman who, along with her dead son, embodies everything that’s right about this country. The growing division between the professional class of spinning punditry and the vast expanse of Middle America that actually does the working, the fighting and the dying so the pundits can spend their time chattering has never been more clear than with this story.
If I had lost a parent, child or sibling in Iraq, I’d be right next to Cindy Sheehan sitting in that dust and heat. And I wouldn’t budge until the president—ensconced within that reassuring bubble of faith, brush-clearing and mountain bike-riding—found a few moments to come listen to me. I hope as many people as possible join her protest and offer her food, water, and whatever legal or media assistance she may need.
In the meantime, it behooves the rest of us to do our part and engage in some “outing” of our own. That includes identifying and relentlessly shaming those who have become so unmoored from morality that not only have they abandoned the uniquely American ideals of accountability and sacrifice, they openly ridicule them.
Amen.
tags: Cindy Sheehan, anti-war, protestors, politics, George W. Bush, Iraq, mud-slinging
You may also enjoy...
5 comments
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on August 13, 2005 at 12:33 am
Big Dog said:
One certainly has compassion for Ms. Sheehan. I imagine it is difficult to lose a child not just in war, but anytime. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. I know Ms. Sheehan met with the President in the past and she is certainly entitled to change her mind. She should, however make it clear that she met with him in the past and wants to talk again. Until these nasty conservatives brought this to light, there was no mention in the MSM that she had met with the President. This left the impression that he was so uncaring that he ignored her when he in fact cared enough to meet her the first time. For anyone to say he is not a good man because he has not taken the time to talk to her is ignoring the fact that he has. That is the major problem that conservatives had. Not that she is protesting but that she mislead everyone and if not for some on the ball people we might never have known. You have to admit, the story takes on two distinctly different meanings depending upon which information you have.
I would aslo say this. Her son volunteered for service. He was not drafted in to mandatory service, he went of his own free will. Now that does not make his death any less tragic but it also means that GWB did not make him join the service through the draft. GWB did not go collect this young man and send him into the service. He joined on his own. You have to know that when you join the military, especially when we are at war, then there is a real possibility you will be involved in it. Reportedly, his mother begged him not to go to Iraq and said she would take him to Canada. He told her that he had a duty to perform so he was going to Iraq. If this is true then she is disgracing the memory of a young man who honored the commitment he made to his service and his country.
Before anyone reads this and decides that I am some wacko conservative war monger who has an easy time talking from the safety of his home, it might interest you to know that I have 24 years of service in the US Army. I am more than qualified to comment on the matter of young Casey’s service and the commitment soldiers make.
I understand Ms. Sheehan and I pray for her. She would do a lot for her cause if she were not encouraged by Joe Wilson (of the Plame game)and being used as a pawn by the MSM. A large number of people in her family disagree with what she is doing and have written a letter saying so. They say they support the President and while they are sad Casey died, they know he did so for a just cause. Now ask yourself why their sentiments do not get all the media coverage that Cindy is getting. Could it be that their feelings do not reflect those of the anti-Bush media who go out of their way to find stories that could be harmful to him?
It is just a point to ponder. God bless Ms. Sheehan and God have mercy on the sould of her hero son.
on August 13, 2005 at 4:20 am
n. mallory said:
Since I started hearing about Cindy, I’ve never had the impression that she hadn’t already met with him, though from her description of the meeting it sounded more like he was blessing her with his presence and less like he wanted to actually talk about the war itself.
I think that you are missing the point about what Cindy is trying to get accross. Yes, it is a volunteer army at the moment and coming from a long line of military joiners, I can understand that you sign up for better or worse. However, when you sign up, don’t you have a right to think that if you are going to be sent to war, it will be for a noble cause and that it will be the absolute last option and that when your Commander-in-chief sends you to war that he will be honest about why and shouldn’t you expect that CIC to admit when he might have been wrong and shouldn’t you expect him to make sure everything is well-thought out and planned for and that he isn’t sending you somewhere without the proper weapons and armor or without an exit plan?
Oh, and by the way, some relatives of Bush wrote their own letter last fall during the election saying they didn’t agree with him either. My family doesn’t always agree on politics. 2004 was the first time my parents and I voted the same.
on August 13, 2005 at 11:36 am
Big Dog said:
When you join the military and go to war you go as ordered. You do not have a right to expect it is just or otherwise. If we did that some soldiers would feel it was and some it was not. And whether a war is just is an opinion. There are some who felt it was not just for us to be involved in WW II. Were they right or wrong.
You are wrapped up in media hype. Our soldiers are the best trained and best equipped in the world. The best equipment does not prevent people from being killed. HUMVEES were not designed for what they are being used and therefore were not armored. Since we do not have more of the appropriate types of vehicles (thatnk you Clinton) then we go with what we have. Whether the war is right or wrong is a matter of opinion and since this country is polarized there will be about 50% in favor and 50% not.
It is not a point of who wrote letters. It is a point that the media does or does not cover it. You will notice they covered the Bush family writing them because that fits their anti-Bush agenda.
Cindy is being prompted by a few very anti Bush forces (like Joe Wilson) and my opinion is that she was put up to this. She was used as a pawn to push an agenda. And that is the true shame here.
There will be a “Support Our Troops” rally in Crawford, Saturday, August 13 - Crawford Civic Center, which is located in the 1000 block of East 4th Street, Start time 12 Noon.
How much have you heard about that?? Not much I bet but you hear a lot about the protestors. I bet there will be more people at the support rally but they will be largely ignored. And why, because it shows a positive side the the President’s policies. That is something the MSM will not stand for.
on August 14, 2005 at 11:50 am
n. mallory said:
I’m wrapped up in the media hype?
You’re right that the best trained and best equipped don’t stop deaths, but it sure helps. We should never have gone until we had the right equipment. We shouldn’t have gone in without properly armored vehicles. It was very poor planning.
You will notice they covered the Bush family writing them because that fits their anti-Bush agenda.
And the letter from Cindy’s relatives doesn’t fit into the pro-Bush agenda? There’s always some agenda.
Oh, and back in the early 90’s after the Cold War ended, Dick Chenney was one of the movers and shakers trying to reduce that military budget so don’t blame it all on Clinton.
on August 15, 2005 at 6:52 pm
Big Dog said:
Humvees were not meant to be armored vehicles. What we could have used were more Bradleys. Humvees replaced jeeps and they were utility vehicles. It is not a matter of going in with the wrong equipment as it is using equipment in was it was not intended.
The letter from the family was probably sent by them because of their embarassment. You will notice it was reported by Drudge. There were no throngs of media out covering what the rest of the family had to say. Yes, there are always agendas. The MSM has a very liberal one.
You are correct, Dick Cheney wanted to reduce the budget Not the military. He wanted to use more superior weaponry (lighter and more mobile) that required fewer soldiers. The idea was that this would be less expensive than great big heavily armored divisions. Clinton reduced the military budget by reducing the size of the military AND the amount of equipment. We lost half our combat divisions and the equipment which was not replaced at all Vheney would have had fast striking Brigades (smaller than Divisions) to replace the Divisions. There is a very big difference.
Oh, and to throw another wrench in John Kerry voted against all the modern lethal weapons systems.