Yesterday, Stephanie Miller exposed Fox News’ latest attempt to trash the reputation of Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq and who has been sitting outside George W. Bush’s posh vacation compound asking only to ask Bush a question.
Apparently for Republicans, asking leaders questions is beyond the pale, and so they feel they must stop her and her question at all costs. The problem is that most Americans sympathize with her more than they sympathize with the Republicans. The Republican solution: trash Cindy Sheehan on national television.
The problem is, Cindy Sheehan seems to be a straightforward, sincere, honest, down-to-earth person. So Fox News is resorting to this: pointing out that Cindy Sheehan lives in Vacaville, which is within two hours’ drive of UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and UC Santa Cruz.
Horrors! In the Republican worldview, it is apparently an evil act to live within a couple of hours’ drive of state university campuses. The implication, that she lives in a den of liberalism, is also supposed to be some evil thing. They can’t touch Cindy Sheehan, so they’ve got to attack her for where she lives. It’s the sort of geographic bigotry we see from Republicans all the time: when they couldn’t touch John Kerry’s substantive criticisms of George W. Bush, they’d just say that he lived in Massachussets, or looked French. The White House didn’t like what a reporter had to say about them, so they leaked that he was gay… and a Canadian!
This is all part of the Republican game of deciding just who can and who can’t speak in America. In the Fox News universe, freedom of speech doesn’t apply if you’re not Christian, not straight, not Republican, not a member of the right organization, or not the resident of the right town or state. There are so many categories of person that Republicans say don’t have the right to speech that almost everybody will end up fitting in one of them, which is highly convenient. The end point of their strategy is that nobody should be able to speak unless they agree with the Republican talking points.
If the bigoted, freedom-denying nature of the slam against Sheehan weren’t enough, there’s the factual problem that Vacaville isn’t exactly the liberal bastion that Fox News says it is. I looked up political contributions from Vacaville, and while contributions to Democrats outweighed contributions, it wasn’t by much. There are a lot of Democrats in Vacaville, and there are a lot of Republicans in Vacaville. But facts and fairness don’t matter, I suppose, when you’ve got a dissident to smear.
Wouldn’t that mean Cindy lives within a two hour drive of the Hoover Institute?
Sheehan is working with a political consultant and a team of public relations professionals, and now she is featured in a television ad.
…aided by political organizers…
…Fenton Communications, a Washington public relations firm that has worked intermittently with Sheehan over the past year to coordinate media coverage…
After the meeting, she was quoted by the newspaper in her hometown of Vacaville, Calif., as saying that the president seemed sympathetic. Subsequently, she has said that Bush treated her callously during the meeting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/12/AR2005081201816.html
No one is saying she doesn’t have the right to free speech…but she HARDLY speaks for her son. He was a young man of 24 who obviously believed in th war effort by re-enlisting. He is a hero that, in my opinion, would be EMBARASSED by his mother’s actions. This is not about a grieving mother wanting answers. This is a political opportunity being seized and EXPLOITED by the left. Shame on all of you on the RIGHT and LEFT. You both rally the weak to try and fight your cause for you.
Oh, that’s a laugh. Someone comes on here – anonymously and tells us that in his opinion a dead man that he never knew would be embarassed by his mother.
Oh, keep up the anti-Sheehan credibility, Anonymous!!!
Yeah, and if you’re going to follow the Fox News talking points, I’d like you to explain how, if organizing in conjunction with a consultant hired by the pro-peace women’s group Code Pink, you can support George W. Bush, who works with armies of consultants hired by the corporations???
Listen, you person who is too cowardly to even identify yourself – we are not using “the weak” to fight our cause for us.
First of all, this is not just our cause. It is Cindy Sheehan’s cause too, as she has said before.
Secondly, we have been working full time on this issue for years. We’re fighting it for ourselves, thank you very much, and we have been since well before the war began, when we called George W. Bush on his lies about weapons of mass destruction while all the mainstream press and top politicians were following along in line.
Knock it off, anonymous – you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
I just don’t know how you liberals can’t see that Cindy Sheehan is a pure evil traitor! Why, she wants the President of the United States to justify the war! What the hell? Doesn’t she know that only evildoers provide justification for killing hundreds of thousands of people? The good guys never justify killing people – they just do it! Duh!
Scuse me there, Pardon…Seems that you believe that we went into Iraq to do good. If that’s the case, sorry to bust your bubble, but we went in there under a HUGE blanket of lies that were told to us by our president and his cabinet….lies that are coming more and more exposed each day, despite their best efforts. Not one of us here at this site have anything but the highest respect for the troops…hell, some of us have served our country before in Vietnam, a war that this one reminds us very much of for a variety of reasons. Nobody here is a “traitor”…unless you equate “dissent” with “treason”…in which case, you are either greviously misinformed, in which case, get educated…or you are a closet Fascist, in which case, apply to the White House for a job. In case you haven’t noticed, the current shell game is being played, not to increase American security, but to enrich several big businesses, at the expense of good, decent American men and women’s lives. Bill Clinton got impeached for lying about a sexual indescretion…Bush’s lies started a war that, so far has costed billions of taxpayer’s money, much of which went into the copffers of the Vice-President’s “former” corporation, Halliburton. In addition, his lies have cost close to 2000 American lives. When are we going to do the honorable thing and investigate HIM?
Cindy Sheehan “HARDLY speaks for her son?”
Who are you to say a grieving mother doesn’t speak for her own son?
Then you have the arrogance to claim you know what he “obviously believed,” and how he “would have” felt. Really? Did you know Casey?
I guess Bush can speak for Casey, too. Right? Apparently Bush has the right to say what Casey died for. Really? Did he know Casey?
What gives you and Bush the right to speak for Casey, then say his own mother can not?
Have you no shame?
I didn’t know Casey. I don’t know Cindy. And I don’t claim to speak for either of them.
If families of the fallen want to salute the flag and celebrate America in honor of their lost loved ones, I will never, ever say a word against them.
But if families of the fallen want to honor their lost loved ones with a celebration of the civic virtue that makes America strong–asking tough questions of elected officials? Apparently people like “Anonymous” think they are fair game for the smearing.
Any why not? It wouldn’t be the first time they smeared a war hero, would it? No, they perfected the smear-the-war-hero strategy with McCain and Kerry. Why not smear the family of a war hero who has made the ultimate sacrifice? They have no principles, and will stop at nothing.
Cindy Sheehan is asking for answers from Bush, and she is asking for support from America.
The difference between me and you, “Anonymous?” I support the family of a war hero. You do not.
Shame on me? Shame on you!
That’s the thing with some people, plenty of “respect for (what) the dead (died for)” but no respect for the living.
And PardonMoi was being sarcastic, I believe.
In today’s (Aug.14) Sunday Inquirer here in Philadelphia, right on the front page there’s an article claiming that public support for the Iraq war is faltering. Faltering is better than the usual “it doesn’t affect me, why should i care” attitude of the general public, which is having a hard enough time keeping up with gas prices,subsequent increases in almost everything else connected to gas in any way, and the lack of (or paltry) pay increases. Geez, maybe in the next year or two the general public will stumble to the conclusion that Bush is an idiot with no war or domestic plan other than to line the pockets of his corporate buddies and vote the Republicons out. Nah, wishful thinking . . .
maybe we’ll stumble on to the fact that bushies aren’t idiots and that they are systematically taking the middle class right down the drain.
hare trinity is probably right about pardon moi, the fact that his comment came of as sincere makes me wonder about how easy it is for these assholes to manipulate the public. this is classic karl rove bullshit. hack, hack, hack!!!
WHY CAN’T WE GET RID OF THESE GUYS?
times like these i hope there is a hell and george and all his cohorts burn, baby, burn!
(gotta go now, i’m getting a little out of hand)
Anonymous, get your facts in order before you smear this fine woman.
1. Cindy Sheehan’s immediate family members all support her. It’s her in-laws that disagree with her.
2. Casey Sheehan opposed the war, but was already in the military and so went off to be killed. If we have to make a presumption, it would be that Casey Sheehan would have supported his mother.
3. Cindy Sheehan is granted the right to speak her mind by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We all have that right. Why you oppose the organizing principles of the United States of America is beyond me.
Odd,
1. No family member supports her, ask them, they’re touring Europe.
2. Casey reenlisted to fight in Iraq.
3. She has the right to spew her anti-Semitic crap; we have the right to call her, (and you) fever swamp liars.
Be careful, Joe. Criticism of Israel is not the same thing as anti-semitism.
But you know, what this is about is not Cindy Sheehan. It’s about George W. Bush leading this nation into war based on LIES.
Lie: Saddam Hussein could nuke us in 49 minutes.
Lie: Vast arsenals of biological and chemical weapons
Lie: We’ll be welcomed with flowers in the streets
Lie: We have a post-invasion plan
Lie: We are doing this as a last resort
Lie: Iraq was connected to the 9-11 attacks
Lie: The war will pay for itself
Lie: The soldiers are defending America from a grave and impending threat
It’s all lies. LIES. Amazing how that one third of Americans are so eager to based a murderous war based on nothing more than lies.
Delightful, Rathaven.
Yes, you have the right to call names. But that doesn’t mean it’s right.
Our troops in Iraq now know that if they fall in the service of America, their sacrifice will be rewarded by you, and people like you, calling their mothers names.
Cindy Sheehan has shown how we can honor their sacrifice without supporting the lies for which Bush has sacrificed them.
You and your swift-boating buddies have shown something else: Right-wingers are willing to smear the families of war heros in defense of lies.
You and your right-wing pals have a right not to “support the troops.” It comes as little surprise that you never supported them anyway–your slogans always rang a little hollow. No, your loyalty has always been to the dirty little lying neo-con game. And if the troops or their families get in the way of that, well, I guess both their lives and their honor are expendable as far as you are concerned.
So go ahead and call names. But be careful–you’re showing your true colors.
Rathaven,
Her husband, daughters and sister have spoken out in her favor.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Stop spewing talking points and think.
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