Salon: "Smearing Cindy Sheehan"

[question everything]

Edited the title as requested)

Smearing Cindy Sheehan

Conservatives are attacking her as a dupe of the left who’s exploiting her dead son. Some relatives have piled on too. But the grieving mother says her well-timed Crawford visit is "my idea, my mission, my vision."

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo

Aug. 13, 2005 | August was supposed to have been a quiet month for George W. Bush. Last year, the president cut short his customary weekslong vacation in order to campaign for reelection, so this year, unencumbered, he'd planned to spend more than a month in the sweltering heat of his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Then, last week, Cindy Sheehan, a grieving Northern California woman whose son was killed in Baghdad, Iraq in April 2004, showed up on Bush's vacation doorstep. She refuses to leave until Bush meets her in person. Nothing's been quiet in Crawford ever since.

It wouldn't be quite right to say that Sheehan's stand has vaulted the war back to the forefront of the national consciousness. Fresh horrors in Iraq daily are enough for that. But Sheehan is clearly forcing Bush to personally and publicly confront the consequences of his choices. And she's forcing reporters to pay attention, too. On Thursday, Bush was asked to respond to Sheehan's protest. "I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan," Bush said. "She feels strongly about her position. She has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America." But Bush also said that he disagrees with those Americans, like Sheehan, who want U.S. troops to pull out from Iraq. And he didn't suggest he'd be meeting with Sheehan anytime soon, either.

(snip)

As a matter of politics, Sheehan's stand is brilliant. Bush's chief political asset is his embrace of the troops and their families; the longer he refuses to meet with Sheehan, the more unconcerned -- and even callous -- Bush risks looking to the public. And by providing a genuine news event in the hot, sleepy confines of Crawford, she's gotten far more media attention than she garnered as the star of a MoveOn ad. She's been profiled in dozens of papers and hailed in a New York Times editorial. Consequently, she's also been smeared by the right. Pundits have pointed out Sheehan's apparent inconsistencies -- in the past, she said that she believed Bush cares about the troops who've died, and she spoke warmly of a brief visit with the president after Casey's death that she now recalls as insincere and impersonal. All this week Matt Drudge has hammered on Sheehan, publicizing criticism by some of her family members, who say they support Bush and the war. On the Tuesday edition of his show, Fox host Bill O'Reilly said Sheehan's behavior "borders on treasonous."

Conservatives have assailed Sheehan for her association with Michael Moore (she has been blogging on Moore's Web site) and the antiwar group Code Pink. Some depict her as the left's dupe, but Sheehan insists she came up with the idea for the Crawford visit on her own. In a telephone conversation with Salon on Friday afternoon, Sheehan explained her inconsistencies and defended her association with Moore and others on the left. Just before the call, Bush's motorcade sped by "Camp Casey," which is what Sheehan calls the protest stand she's erected in her son's memory. The cars didn't even slow down.

(snip)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/08/13/sheehan/print.html

[Erika]

1. Bush's snub of Cindys group is intolerable

But he only talks to pre-screened Bushbots.

[ixion]

2. drives right on by on his way to a fundraiser

I mean, c'mon... someone explain to me how this plays into 'moral values'? :crazy:

[Bellamia]

3. What comes to mind is........

"that the suspicion of being wrong (as in starting the Iraq war) leads to the conviction of being right, and is defended to the extreme."
A phrase I learned from my Volunteer mental health work.

Something Bush could use about now, a little psychotherapy, or an AA
Meeting where the 12 steps would have him admit faults, apologize..yeah right!!!

[Cha]

4. Thanks, I hadn't read that, yet.

"I know you're going to be out there for the month of August. How long do you think the media's going to pay attention to you? Do you worry about that?

I don't really care. I didn't come out here to do this for the media. I came out here to do this to end the war. If the mainstream media's not here we've got blogs, we've got the Internet. It'll still keep going. Smart America will know what's going on. They're the ones who are going to put pressure on the elected officials to effect any change."


Cindy is so eloquent..and her story is so poignant.

[I Have A Dream]

5. When I first saw this post, I thought that it was an article where...

Salon was smearing Cindy. I was really taken aback because this is not at all like Salon. Maybe it's just me, but you might want to change the title to put the title of the article in quotes so nobody else is confused and Salon isn't inaccurately viewed as having done this. (Of course, I may be the only person who would be confused.)

Salon's a great site, so I'd hate for someone to see the title and think badly about them.