Ugly acts of desperation

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Sun, 21 Aug 2005 14:52:00 -0700 (PDT)

Ugly acts of desperation

 

 

 

 

Ugly acts of desperation

The right has hit new depths with its scurrilous and idiotic attacks

on Cindy Sheehan, a politically inexperienced mother in deep pain.

 

By Joe Conason

 

Aug. 19, 2005 | Now that Cindy Sheehan has left Crawford, Texas, to

care for her ailing mother, perhaps the blowhards and war bloggers

will stop vilifying the brave, grieving woman whose protest vigil

reawakened the peace movement.

 

Like Max Cleland and John Kerry, the decorated Democratic veterans who

endured vicious lies about their service because they dared to oppose

President Bush, Sheehan has learned that the proof of her patriotism

doesn't matter to the bullies of the Republican right. Forming an

electronic mob, these so-called conservatives don't hesitate to rough

up war heroes and Gold Star Families for Peace mothers in a manner

that would once have been simply unimaginable in American politics.

 

In recent weeks prominent conservatives have charged Sheehan with

committing nearly every variety of political sin, from lying, fakery

and publicity seeking to communism and anti-Semitism. A few have gone

so far as to accuse her of dishonoring the memory of her son Casey, an

Army specialist killed last year in an attack by Iraqi insurgents.

 

Most of the attacks on Sheehan are scarcely deserving of any answer

because they are based on the willful distortion or misinterpretation

of her remarks. Early on, for example, the Drudge Report suggested

that she had changed her account of her first meeting with Bush,

praising his behavior then and angrily criticizing him now. That

attack, based on a report in a Vacaville, Calif., newspaper,

evaporated when the newspaper published a story defending her as

consistent in her attitude toward the president and the war.

 

As Sheehan's presence outside George W. Bush's Texas home continued to

draw attention that embarrassed him, the assaults on her intensified

and took on a heightened ideological tone. Ann Coulter and Rush

Limbaugh sought to discredit her by citing connections with liberal

and leftist organizations that have supported her protest. Typically

unable to suppress her McCarthyite tic, Coulter accused Sheehan of

engaging in " Stalinist agitprop, " while Limbaugh humiliated himself by

comparing her " staged " protest to the " forged documents " given to CBS

News by Bill Burkett. No sane person believes that Sheehan is a

communist, of course, and the meaning of Limbaugh's stupid comparison

remains obscure. What kind of political protest isn't " staged " ?

 

Moreover, Sheehan has been upbraided repeatedly for her alleged

assistance to the enemies of America who killed her son. Charles

Krauthammer and David Horowitz have suggested that her criticism of

the Bush administration and the rationale for war will encourage the

Iraq insurgency -- that she is " serving " that insidious, treasonous

fifth column who don't want America to win the war on terror.

 

Baiting a bereaved mother as a traitor ought to be beneath even

Horowitz, but when he's desperate he can stoop quite low. The notion

that the Iraqi insurgents or al-Qaida terrorists require

" encouragement " from Sheehan or anyone else is idiotic. If Horowitz

and Krauthammer were paying attention, they would understand that our

troops are suffering, the war is going badly and the insurgents are

doing their worst because the U.S. government is run by incompetents

-- and not because of a protesting mother.

 

It may be true that Sheehan has made intemperate and foolish remarks

about various topics, from American support for Israel to the

personality of the president. She is politically inexperienced and in

deep pain. (Christopher Hitchens and G. Gordon Liddy have called her

" anti-Semitic, " which in itself is mildly comical owing to their own

spotty records. Hitchens once made a fool of himself defending

Hitler-loving historian David Irving, and of course the fascistic

Liddy is known not only for his professed admiration of the Third

Reich but for his devotion to the late Richard Nixon, who sullied the

Oval Office with his obscene sputterings about Jews.) Nobody sane is

looking to her as a political philosopher or an expert on Mideast policy.

 

Whatever Sheehan has said or done, the real problem for the right is

her demand that the president address questions for which he and his

conservative allies have no convincing answers. He cannot explain the

shifting rationale for the war that has cost the lives of Casey

Sheehan and thousands of others. He cannot explain why the war was so

poorly planned. He cannot explain why he has no plausible exit strategy.

 

For the right as much as for the left, Sheehan is a symbol. She

represents a growing threat to Republicans, who fear that they will

pay a heavy electoral price next year for the unjustified and

unnecessary bloodshed in Iraq. And that is why, from the beginning,

Bush's defenders have tried to change the subject to her supposed

mistakes and misstatements. They would far prefer to mock and malign

her than to talk about the supposed reasons that her son and so many

other innocents are dead.

 

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/08/19/bullying_sheehan/print.html