No not Cindy Sheehan, although if you were to believe the smear campaign being waged against her by right-wing media, you’d think she was a brainless hand puppet for MoveOn.org - instead of an articulate, intelligent grieving mother who is asking a question THEY CAN”T ANSWER. No, this tool of the "Radical Left” is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Rarely have the evil manipulations of the “Left” been more apparent.
Hagel must be a pawn of Michael Moore or Jane Fonda, because he has the audacity to compare Iraq with Vietnam and then say that the White House was “disconnected from the reality and losing the war.” Certainly no self-respecting Republican politician would dare utter those words of his own free will. That stinging critique would certainly, as Charles Krauthammer wrote about Cindy Sheehan, hurt and endanger our troops.
When Senator Hagel says that “Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we’re taking,” it must be a Manchurian moment, because we all know that that kind of talk proves that someone has “has thrown in with the most radical elements in this country,” as Bill O’Reilly so astutely surmises of Ms. Sheehan.
But perhaps the most damning proof that Senator Hagel is a traitor comes from the following statement:
The casualties we’re taking, the billion dollars a week we’re putting in there, the kind of commitment we’ve got — we’re not going to be able to sustain it.
That borders on sacrilege. How dare Chuck Hagel question the sacrifice in either lives or dollars that our leadership is willing to make on our behalf? Just because he was an Army infantry squad leader in Vietnam (and not protecting the great state of Texas!) and because he sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--that gives him no right, no reason and no authority to point out the obvious. He is nothing more than a
...poster child for surrender...[and]...has further encouraged the conviction of our Islamofascist enemies that, as they expected, an indolent and self-indulgent United States cannot stand up to determined, ruthless foes.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr., Washington Times columnist on Cindy Sheehan - August 16th
Even his stance that President Bush should have altered his busy vacation schedule (today marks the day he is officially the most "well-rested” president in history - and in three less years than Ronnie - woot!) and met with Cindy Sheehan is wrongheaded. As Kathleen Parker so eloquently puts it Bush
can’t [meet with Sheehan] because he’s the president of the United States, because we’re at war, and because every move he makes causes ripples around the world. Ripples that, depending on other circumstances, can get other sons and daughters killed.
Certainly the deaths are all on Chuck Hagel and Cindy Sheehan’s head. Just because the war should never have happened, has been poorly planned from the start, and shows few promising signs of getting better, we need to place the blame where is belongs.
Article comments
1 - TechnoHippie
If we really wanted to live in peace, we should have all voted for Dennis Kucinich, the only remaining candidate that's advocating something other than more war. Left-right, democrat-republican, muslim-jew ... all same-same. They have all become what they hate about the other instead of forging a new path on the "Road to Peace."
I think it's time to stop worrying about preventing civil war in Iraq and take a good hard look at the storm brewing in our own country. The line was drawn in the sand in Crawford, Texas and the only folks pushing, shoving and screaming are the ones who like this war just the way it is.
Cindy Sheehan is only doing what no one has done before: peacefully refusing to be ignored and calmly holding George W. Bush accountable for her son's death in this ignoble war. Measure her by her words and deeds, measure her opponents' by theirs. Hold up a mirror and see who's brave enough to look at their reflection. From here it looks like George Bush and his entourage are the cowards d'jour.
2 - Kurt
The right-wing response to Ms. Sheehan's protest is unbelievably sexist. They can't imagine that an American woman could possibly do something smart, brave, difficult, and principled all by her little old self! She must be a pawn of some nefarious (and male-run) organizations. God forbid an American woman exercises her constitutional rights (and responsibilities) without male direction. Bigoted creeps.
3 - x32792
When asked some hard questions...questions the Major Media should have been asking... the Best Gov'ment Money Can Buy simply refuses to answers.
4 - 1Potato
"smart, brave, ... and principled"
I think these apply to her son, not her.
Mrs. Sheehan called Bush the biggest terrorist on Earth. Do you really think that is a "smart" thing to say?
And attacking Israel, was that smart too?
5 - Victor Lana
Cindy Sheehan has proven to be her own woman. She is no pawn of Michael Moore or the media or anyone else. She speaks the truth and that's just too damn hard for some people to take or accept.
6 - Cranky Liberal
Do I really think that was a smart thing to say?
Was it smart when Karl Rove questioned the patriotism of every liberal? Not particularly. Is Karl Rove smart? You better believe it.
Is Cyndi Sheehan angry and possibly prone to firey statements. Yep. Is she smart? Well you tell me. She is now known throught the world. She has put more pressure on this administration that any liberal politician and even at her most bombastic she is still more credible than the person residing in the White House.
Yep, I'd say that's smart. You may not like her agenda, but she is doing a greta job pushing it.
7 - Edilberto Pulido
President Bush does not have the time to see Cindy Sheehan whose son was killed in the unjustified war in Iraq. However he has the time to entertain Ahmad Chalabi, the man who duped the brightest of the brightest of the Pentagon providing false information that contributed to the invasion of Iraq and received from tax payers $335,000 monthly for a total of $28 million for his services. Chalabi said that the past has to be forgotten and look to the future. What is the future for the orphans, widows, parents of the 2045 GIs killed in Iraq and what is the future for more than 15,000 GIs wounded? Needless to say their future is not bright
8 - Irene Athena
THIS article (2008) is evidence of a long-standing bias against Chuck Hagel. I'm glad it turns out that Chuck Hagel will be advising Obama as Defense Secretary.
Cutting spending is a significant part of economic recovery. Cuts to defense spending will be likely with Hagel, cuts in both the current bloat of inefficiency and the waste of national treasure of money and lives in a "War on Terror" that has no clear objectives and no end in sight.
I'm not sure this will usher in an era of bipartisanship in general. The loudest voices calling out in bipartisan unity will be from hawkish neocon Republicans and hawkish neocons in progressive liberal clothing. The important thing is that Obama and Hagel respect one another and have worked well together in the past.
A decorated Vietnam veteran and no fan of a foreign policy of military expansion (including an unwarranted antipathy towards Iran) Hagel supported Obama instead of McCain in the '08 election. As a social conservative, he has a consistent life ethic that he is going to apply where it will do the most good: working with a president who may, with his expert military advice and ideological support, see his 2008 dreams of Hope and Change realized.
9 - Irene Athena
This article actually describes evidence of a long-standing bias against Chuck Hagel, and is not in itself evidence of it. People who recognize sarcasm on the first pass through would have recognized that...on the first pass through...
10 - Dr Dreadful
Actually, Irene, it describes bias against Cindy Sheehan, and is itself the only source that links Ms. Sheehan with Sen. Hagel.
11 - Irene Athena
But no, Dr. D, I read the linked-to article carefully (this time! yes I really did!), and near the end it reads: On another Iraq-related issue, Hagel said Bush made the wrong decision by not meeting again with Cindy Sheehan, a mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq who has camped outside the president's Texas ranch.
Cranky Liberal's article on the whole is describing (using sarcasm) a bias against Cindy Sheehan, but it also describes (again through sarcasm) a long-standing mischaracterization by the Republicans of one of their own, Chuck Hagel, as a tool of the left.