Decision ‘08

Weekly Jackass Number Thirty-Nine: Cindy Sheehan

Many times, I take great pleasure in awarding a Weekly Jackass; after all, the intellectual shennanigans of a Noam Chomsky or a Gore Vidal just scream out for ridicule. I take no pleasure at all in awarding this one, because there’s nothing funny about a grieving mother. Ask yourself this, though: if Cindy Sheehan had not lost her son, would you even hesitate to condemn her actions?

Let’s be clear: the obvious, and lamentable, grief she is feeling is not a cause for ridicule. Neither is protest against the President and his policies; that is no more than the right of all Americans, regardless of circumstance. Her loss is tragic, but it confers no special insight into the politics of war, as others have noted. It is also true that Ms. Sheehan is being used as a tool by people who see her as nothing more than a bludgeon to beat President Bush about the head with (notice the fetishization of Ms. Sheehan in a manner reminiscent of the worse excesses of the Terry Schiavo affair).

All of this is nothing more or less than might be expected in a wartime environment where families are facing tragedy and the politics are charged. This, however, might strike a discordant chord with some:

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy…not for the real reason, because the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn’t changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq…in fact it has gotten worse.

Rarely is the use of ‘neocon’ as an anti-Semitic slur so open…usually one has to dance around artful phrasing to determine that ‘neocon’ is shorthand for ‘Jew’. Whatever else we might hold against the soon-to-be Miss Sheehan, at least she is clear here.

In case you think I play the anti-Semitic card too quickly, I’ll grant you a little room (but just a very little); Sheehan is not provably ‘anti-Semitic’ (a near impossibility to prove), but she is definitely anti-Israel (I’ll not play the game of pretending that hostility to Israel, per se, and not to any given Israeli policy, is distinguishable from hostility to Jews, but if others wish to, it’s a free country). Sheehan has been gracious enough to expand on her view of Israel elsewhere:

“…I want him [President Bush] to tell me…‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ Was it freedom and democracy? Bullsh**! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” she exclaimed.

When one argues for a two-state solution, or for Israel to cede control of certain areas in the West Bank and Gaza, that is one thing; but to say “Israel out of Palestine” is quite another. Quite simply, that is an argument for the destruction of the Jewish state. Since Israel can be believed, regardless of who currently holds the reins of power, to be irreconciliably opposed to giving up its hard-earned state, we can assume this destruction will be involuntary.

Now, let no one accuse me of attacking a mother of a dead soldier, for that I will never do; attacking someone who goes very public with anti-Israel sentiments and radical Leftist propaganda, though, is another matter entirely. That a person of this second category is also a member of the first is entirely beside the point. Christopher Hitchens hits the nail on the head, as he does so often:

Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive. I dare say that her “moral authority” to do this is indeed absolute, if we agree for a moment on the weird idea that moral authority is required to adopt overtly political positions, but then so is my “moral” right to say that she is spouting sinister piffle. Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority? I certainly would not ask or expect them to do so. Why, then, should anyone grant them such a privilege?…

…There are, in fact, some principles involved here. Any citizen has the right to petition the president for redress of grievance, or for that matter to insult him to his face. But the potential number of such people is very large, and you don’t have the right to cut in line by having so much free time that you can set up camp near his drive. Then there is the question of civilian control over the military, which is an authority that one could indeed say should be absolute. The military and its relatives have no extra claim on the chief executive’s ear. Indeed, it might be said that they have less claim than the rest of us, since they have voluntarily sworn an oath to obey and carry out orders.

That Sheehan has lost her son is tragic, no doubt; that she and those who exploit her loss expect us to grant them the high road, when they routinely spout out nonsense at this level, would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high.

UPDATE 7:47 p.m. central: Many thanks to Leon H of Red State and Macho Nachos fame for the link; our good friend Erick-Woods Erickson has been taking much flack from the Radical Left for comments made in a similar vein at Red State; hang in there, Erick, just means you’re a high-profile target…

UPDATE 2 10:13 p.m. central: John Hawkins presents 7 Reasons Why Cindy Sheehan Is So Irritating…

UPDATE 3 08/16/05 8:57 p.m. central: Thanks also to the good Dr. Shackleford for sending a link my way…

31 Responses to “Weekly Jackass Number Thirty-Nine: Cindy Sheehan”

1 E.K. Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
That Cindy Sheehan is spectacularly wrong in her views, as she has expressed them, is difficult to deny. However, I would rather give her enough benefit of the doubt and call her unhinged by grief rather than stupid. I do not know whether she was a political activist of any orientation before the war or if she took any interest in the issue at all. I suspect that this sad spectacle would not be going on if someone was not trying to “piggyback” their political agenda upon her attempt to cope with loss. That, more so than Cindy Sheehan’s chant of “You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” seems to me to be truly vile.

Of course, if she rode this bandwagon prior to SPC Sheehan’s death, let her take her place among others of her kind.
2 Mark Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
E.K., indeed, unhinged by grief is a possibility…but unhinged is unhinged, and if that is the case, and if her ’supporters’ truly cared about her, rather than what she represents in terms of political capital against Bush, then they would be working to remove this poor woman from the hot Crawford sun and attempt to enroll her in some sort of therapy to work through her pain and grief. No mother or father who has lost a loved one, whether to war or a car accident, feels any less pain…life is brutal sometimes, even often…
3 louielouie Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 7:40 pm
the story i got was see was against her son joining the army and then offered to take him to canada. an offer he refused.
i see some of the same characteristics in ms. sheehan that i saw in some of the relatives of lost ones in the OKC bombing of the murrah building. culminating in the state funded trial of terry nichols, only to lament another life sentence, then crying out about justice not being done. for 10 years and millions of taxpayer dollars. they would try him again in an instant if they could, at taxpayer expense.
this woman is the terrell owens of the political left.
i grieve her loss that has and does afford me the opportunity to blabber on the way i do in this land. but i do not grieve it any more or less than those that have died before, and unfortunately will die.
4 Erick Erickson Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
My wife says Cindy is the Milli-Vanilli of the Democrats. Instead of “Blame It On The Rain” its “Blame It On The Jews.” Lipsyncing the Democratic Underground talking points.
5 Mark Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Ouch!…but very perceptive…
6 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Quick Shots: Don’t Let the Sins of the Father Destroy the Life of the Son Says:
August 15th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
[…] Jackasses : Contact : Aug 15th - 9:23pm « Weekly Jackass Number Thirty-Nine: Cindy Sheehan […]
7 too many steves Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 5:38 am
I really feel nothing but pity for Cindy Sheehan, she has clearly (to me) been driven insane by the death of her son.

As for the exploiters and hangers-on who surround her, they are wretcherd and evil. Had she not lost her son she would be ignored. More reason to pity her.
8 blue on red Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 6:48 am
Have any of you bothered to think that here is a woman whose son was “lost” in this “noble cause” that was based on LIES. Let me spell it out for you: There were no WMD’s. The presence of WMD’s was the only damn reason for going to Iraq, and it pisses me off to no end how Bush supporters keep forgetting that simple fact. Any Democratic president who perpetrated this bullsh** would have been roasted over a spit a long time ago. America just turns a blind eye to the Bush Administration. They lied and decieved the American people for reasons that will eventually make themselves clear. If my kid had died in this “noble cause”, and had I the luxury of not working, I would be a thorn in this president’s side from the day my child was buried until the day Bush leaves the white house. And, I would do it freely, without pressure from anyone or anything, except my conscience. You conservatives are so arrogant and narrow minded. Pity Cindy Sheehan? I applaud her actions.
9 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 7:03 am
blue on red, you’re attacking a strawman. I said, unequivocably, that Sheehan has the right to protest the President and his policies. The thrust of my piece, as is abundantly clear, is her borderline(?) anti-Semitism, a fact you have conveniently ignored.
10 MachoNachos Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 7:26 am
Blue on Red,

Just because you weren’t paying attention to anything else (besides WMDs) in the hour-long speech or the run-up to the war, doesn’t mean that’s all there was. Or are you perhaps engaged in willful forgetting?

How about:

Violation of numerous UN Resolutions
Violation of the cease-fire agreement
Deception of inspectors and corruption of the inspection process
The usage of chemical weapons of the Kurds
Financial support for terrorist groups like Hamas
Numerous meetings between high-level officials in Al-Qaeda (including Zarqawi) and high-level Iraqi officials
Iraq provided safe haven and medical care for these same terrorists in time of need
The treatment of the Iraqi people at Saddam’s hand
Saddam was mentally unstable and couldn’t be trusted not to destabilize the entire region

Oh, yes, and there were also the WMDs. Which also the French, British and Russians believed they had.

So, you’re pretty much right on, in your own mind.
11 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:09 am
Leon, quite right…WMDs were stressed, too much in my opinion, but even in their absence, there were numerous reasons why Saddam had to go. Even the potential of developing WMDs was good enough for me…after all, look how difficult it is to deal with North Korea…a nuclear Saddam was and is a truly horrible thought…
12 blue on red Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:18 am
Yeah, as to the anti-semitism, I don’t see it as that. Israel has always been treated favorably by the US and other countries because of the ongoing guilt trip for the holocaust. The pullout in Gaza is a step in the right direction. A total withdrawal of Israel from Palestine would be asinine and I don’t think that is what was meant by Ms. Sheehan’s comments. Who knows.
As to your other points:

Am I supposed to take it from a conservative that anything from the UN concerns you? Conservatives are vitriolic when it comes to the UN. But when looking for any excuse to support this war when the initial reasons didn’t pan out, all of a sudden the UN is just great!

The US is as much to blame for this as Hussein. We supplied him with these weapons.

Like there aren’t numerous other countries that financially support terrorist organizations; Saudi Arabia being one of them.

Again, happens all over the world. Are we to stretch are already thin defenses more, or institute a draft up to age 34?
Iraq provided safe haven and medical care for these same terrorists in time of need

What about the millions of Africans who are at this moment dying because of ruthless dictators treatment of their denizens.

Do you have a medical report that verifies Saddam’s mental state? Quit being a ****.
Yeah, pretty much I am right in my own mind.

Oh, yes, and there were also the WMDs. Which also the French, British and Russians believed they had.
13 blue on red Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:25 am
The last sentence in my last post was copied by mistake.
14 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:30 am
blue on red, we welcome criticism here, so please feel free to post away - just one favor; I try to keep the level of discourse above profanity, when at all possible (you only had a couple of minor things that I had to asterisk out…)

You’re quite right that we were far too friendly with Hussein pre-9/11; but of course, as is often said, 9/11 changed everything. As to the Saudis, I grant your point as well; the vast majority of terrorist funding, in fact, comes from Saudi Arabian sources.

Neither of those points, however, makes our current mission in Iraq any less vital; indeed, perhaps they make it more so…
15 Dmac Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 10:36 am
What the previous detractor and all of Ms. Sheehan’s supporters fail to note is that her son had previously served with distinction in Iraq and was scheduled to end his service to our country shortly thereafter.

But, not only did he re - enlist for another tour, but he volunteered to go into another fire zone, where his personal safety was obviously in doubt. No recruiters talked to him about his re - enlistment, his family didn’t appear to pressure him in any way (except, of course, by his mother), but he went back on his own volition. So, it appears her son believed in what he was doing, and went back in spite of the inherent risks.

Also - Ms. Sheehan’s main support has come from an organization called The Crawford Peace House, which is known as an anti - Semitic organization.
16 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 10:41 am
Excellent point, Dmac…and a good reminder that whatever we may think of Ms. Sheehan’s present behavior, we owe a tremendous debt to her son, and those like him in the line of fire every day…
17 MachoNachos Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 11:04 am
Ah, manufactured outrage, we scarcely knew ye.

Am I supposed to take it from a conservative that anything from the UN concerns you? Conservatives are vitriolic when it comes to the UN. But when looking for any excuse to support this war when the initial reasons didn’t pan out, all of a sudden the UN is just great!

Kind of the whole reason we think the UN sucks (if you’re interested in paying attention) is that they don’t enforce a single resolution they pass. It’s a tremendous waste of our tax money, and some very valuable real estate to pass a lot of resolutions nobody intends to enforce.

So, really, the whole point was, we were glad that Bush was going to enforce what the rest of the UN had already said, when the UN plainly would not.

The US is as much to blame for this as Hussein. We supplied him with these weapons.

And given that we soundly kicked his rump in ‘91, one of the conditions for us not deposing him right then and there was that he immediately destroy those weapons, and provide conclusive evidence of his disarmament. That’s the kind of thing you get to do when you utterly humiliate the military of another country. When they violate the cease-fire agreement, you get to go do it again. Moving on.

Like there aren’t numerous other countries that financially support terrorist organizations; Saudi Arabia being one of them.

We find that it’s more effective to deal with them one at a time. You plant the seeds of change in a region, perhaps you don’t have to deal with them all militarily.

But don’t expect me to take you even halfway seriously on this. If we had gone to Saudi Arabia, you’d have complained about why we didn’t go to Iran. If we went to Iran, it would have been North Korea that should have been next on the list. If we went to North Korea, it should have been Syria. This entire stupid “argument” is just an excuse for liberals to never support a war that we’re currently fighting, without having to admit that they’d never actually support a war, period. They’d always support some other hypothetical war that we should have been involved in. You’ll pardon me for pointing out that this is a load of crap.

Iraq provided safe haven and medical care for these same terrorists in time of need

What about the millions of Africans who are at this moment dying because of ruthless dictators treatment of their denizens.

Hmm. For a bonus point on your LSAT, see if you can tell my why these two sentences have nothing to do with one another.

Do you have a medical report that verifies Saddam’s mental state? Quit being a ****.

Inconveniently, any doctors who might have rendered such a diagnosis are currently having their remains exhumed somewhere in the Iraqi desert. Some people are just prima facie crazy, and if ever there was a prima facie crazy, it was Saddam Hussein.

Yeah, pretty much I am right in my own mind.

I am glad we are in agreement on something.
18 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 11:23 am
Bravo…well done, my friend…
19 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Support Cindy Sheehan? Then Get Her Out of Crawford Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
[…] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your ownsite. […]
20 retire05 Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Here is the problem I have with Cindy Sheehan. She obviously does not tell the truth, or perhaps she only tells half truths in order to further her political agenda.
Point #1: She claims that Casey was lied to by a recruiter. That because he made high test scores on the ASVAB test, he was promised he would not have to go into combat.
Problem with #1: ASVAB tests are apptitude tests. There is no pass/fail and they are given to students between the grades 10th-12th. Designed by the DOD, did she not know her son was taking the ASVAB test? Parents are notified about these tests and encouraged to be involved with their children and the test.

Point #2: She says Casey wanted to be a chaplain’s assistant. That is a combat position. Was she aware he wanted a combat position?

Point 3#: She never speaks of the fact that he enlisted at the age of 21 in 2000 (she only mentioned it once) but reenlisted in 2004. If her son was so anti-war as she claims, why did he reenlist?

Point #4: She admits that he joined the military without telling her or without her permission. Gee, must we feel sorry for her because her son was exercising his rights as AN ADULT?

Point #5: She admits to offering to drive him to Canada. He refused.
Point #6: She admits that he volunteered for a hazardous mission when he volunteered to go into Sadr City to retrieve members of his unit that were pinned down.
Point #7: She admits that his command gave him the opportunity to stay behind. Casey’s comment was “where my cheif goes, I go.”

Point 5, 6 and 7 show that apparently her son was a man of his own mind and made his own choices. He knew the mission was dangerous. He still chose to go.

Point #8: She claimes that she distanced herself from her inlaws in 2000 when they voted for Bush. Now, taking that into consideration, along with her anger at her son for joining the military, it would seem that Ms. Sheehan has a control problem. (Can anyone say control freak?)

Point #9: She tells two different stories about her meeting with the President (I found pictures of her being kissed on the cheek by the President while her family looked on and smiled). Which is it? Was he rude or was he kind. She can change her views of the war, of politics (yet she seems to be a steadfast anti-war, anti-Isreal protester) but she cannot change the history of her meeting with the President.

Point #10: She says she lost her job because of the President’s policies. Yet, her job with the local Health and Human Resources Department was lost (according to HHS) because of high absenteeism. She bashes our government, but is she saying that because she never went to her job she still wants the government to pay her? Most companies allow 3-5 days funeral leave. How much does she think she is entitled to?

Those are just SOME of the problems I have with Ms. Sheehan.
Not to mention her association with Lynn Stewart, the attorney who defended the blind shikh Omar Abdel Rahman who was convicted of being the mastermind behind the first World Trade Center and is has now been convicted because she passed “fatwas” for the Sheikh.
21 Mark Says:
August 16th, 2005 at 8:33 pm
Yep, retire05, the more you find out about this one, the more it stinks. God bless her son, and give her comfort, but enough already…one wonders how her son would feel to have his name associated with all that is going on…
22 Don Miguel Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
“No recruiters talked to him about his re - enlistment”

Dmac: Recruiters have nothing to do with re-enlistment — that is handled by a Re-enlistment Officer. Other than that, good point.
23 Don Miguel Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
retire05: Excellent points! I must clarify something on your answer to #1:

Yes, ASVABs are aptitude tests and there is no pass/fail, but there is a minimum score depending on the service. Everyone enlisting has to take the ASVAB and enlisting at age 18 or above there is no parental notification (in his case, 21). Anyone enlisting with a high ASVAB score has a pick of jobs, most of them being non-combat.

The more I hear what she says, the more I think she is just a pathological liar.
24 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Our Weekly Jackass Gets The Lileks Treatment Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 6:23 pm
[…] James Lileks takes our Weekly Jackass Cindy Sheehan to the woodshed, for a reason that will be familiar to regular readers: If she blames the war on, say, Zionist fiends, ought not one wonder why the anti-war crowd seems deaf or indifferent to the loathsome underpinnings of her remarks? Perhaps they agree with her when she says this is a war for Israel. David Duke certainly does. Best of all is Lilek’s conclusion: The hard left in America needs to realize a bald, cruel fact: Anyone who sees no moral distinction between Israel and the mullahs of Iran, or sees the U.S. attempt to set up a constitutional republic in Iraq as equivalent to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, suffers from incurable moral cretinism. The more the fervent anti-war base embraces these ideas, the more they ensure that no one will trust the left with national security. Ever. […]
25 Mark Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
Don Miguel, perhaps, and I’m being extremely charitable here, she is filling the hole in her life where her son used to be with the attention showered upon her by the lefties who are exploiting her mercilessly…if so, she will be sorely disappointed when she realizes that she’s just this year’s progressive fashion accessory, to be discarded when she no longer draws the media in in big numbers…
26 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » A Study in Kossacks - Er, Contrasts Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
[…] Cindy Sheehan, of course, famously said that her son died for Israel and not America. Karl Rove, you may recall is the architect of Bush’s political campaigns, but this is the first I’ve heard of his leading role in the Iraq War strategy. Anyway, wasn’t that the Je- excuse me, the neocons? […]
27 Don Miguel Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 10:13 pm
Mark, when I learned of her introduction for Lynne Stewart (a convicted terrorist accomplice) and what she said at that time I became convinced that she had gone beyond just being used by the far left. And I also think this is now about her (me, me, me!) and not her son. One of the best descriptions I have heard about her, and I think it is not being mean, is that she is “unsophisticated.”
28 Mark Says:
August 17th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
I didn’t know about the Lynne Stewart thing until after I put up the post; that is, to say the least, troubling…
29 Decision ‘08 » Blog Archive » Cindy Sheehan: The 2005 Jackass of the Year Says:
December 31st, 2005 at 3:10 pm
[…] This year’s pick is more problematic. As I stated when I awarded her the 39th Weekly Jackass prize: I take no pleasure at all in awarding this one, because there’s nothing funny about a grieving mother. Ask yourself this, though: if Cindy Sheehan had not lost her son, would you even hesitate to condemn her actions? Indeed, it is more as a symbol than a person that Sheehan is our yearly honoree. […]
30 M. Dias Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 1:11 am
Obviously this is a very heated issue among all of us who are politically aware and mothers with Sons. I have two sons, neither of whom I would like to see enlist in the armed forces. At any rate, each of us has our own will and whether we preach to our children as “trubador of peace” or as a war-mongering supporter, each of our children have free will. Perhaps a battering of peace talks provoked this young man into anger and the battle itself. Precious life sacrificed for a useless cause, this young man had free will and excercised it to his very end.
31 M. Dias Says:
May 31st, 2007 at 1:12 am
Obviously this is a very heated issue among all of us who are politically aware and mothers with Sons. I have two sons, neither of whom I would like to see enlist in the armed forces. At any rate, each of us has our own will and whether we preach to our children as “trubador of peace” or as a war-mongering supporter, each of our children have free will. Perhaps a battering of peace talks provoked this young man into anger and the battle itself. Precious life sacrificed for a useless cause, this young man had free will and excercized it to his very end.