August 14, 2005
"Tented up in a ditch."
Drudge is getting awfully mean about Cindy Sheehan. There's a real danger to centering your political argument on one individual. You get the oomph of the personal, but you have a person, who might any minute say something stupid for your opponents to exclaim over. If I was camping out in the Texas sun – "tented up in a ditch" – with cameras in my face for weeks, I can't imagine what the dumbest thing I'd say would be, and I'm sure I'd completely lose touch with how it would look in the press. The real debate ought to be about the war, not about Cindy Sheehan. But it is human nature to divert our attention from a big, complex picture when we have the chance to think and talk about a particular individual. And so we have this endless focus on Ms. Sheehan.
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18 comments:
Drudge can be criticized for playing the emotional game, but he is hardly alone. For many, the problem with the Cindy Sheehan story is the way in which media accounts substitute a rational discussion with an emotional one. Would these same promoters of Sheehan argue that police departments should be shut down following the killing of an officer at the hands of a criminal? That seems to be her rationale for determining national policy.
Like the NARAL ad Ms. Sheehan is backfiring. The anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-American left and their allies in the media thought they found their Rosa Parks.
Not even close.
Beth: I don't like seeing her becoming a big punching bag whenever she says something dumb, but she did ask for it.
Art: What's your logic here? If you vote for someone, you're adopting everything anyone who supported that person ever says? That's absurd! But I think Drudge is justified hitting Sheehan for stating an extreme and reckless opinion about Israel and for the tax thing too. She's made herself a public figure and her sad inadequacy as a general spokeperson is giving those who oppose her on the war many rich opportunites to cut her down to size. I don't blame Drudge for having fun with it. Look at the excesses of the people who pumped her up for their political purposes.
Re Drudge:
Looked at the link and did not see anything underhanded..did he quote Sheehan accurately?? What did he do wrong? imho, from the actua tapes and interviews I have heard of Mrs. Sheehan, she sounds like a very dim bulb and is apparently easily led as she just spews the left talking points.
I always say give me the unvarnished facts - don't withold any facts (and MSM is doing that in the Sheehan case) and I will make up my own mind and opinion re what is treu and correct. And that is my right.
The new tactic of the MSM seems to be "the polls say...." as if we should be governed by polls.
Grief's private and personal; look at the pained and truthful process in Lewis's "A Grief Observed." When you go public and park yourself along the road, you're out of grief and can no longer expect us to offer the respect we tender to sorrow. We don't believe it any more. You're asking to be judged by different standards: effective or ineffective activist?
Ms Althouse wrote, "... I don't like seeing her becoming a big punching bag whenever she says something dumb, but she did ask for it." I do, and it's because she's trying for both - take my message, but if you don't, go easy because I'm greiving. How does this differ, essentially, from the egregious Courtney Love's attempts to claim credit for being clean and sober, while being stoned and vituperative? What's causing the irritation here is not that Michael Moore is scavenging her, but that she's self-exploitive.
I read the Drudge story but don't see where she calls for the destruction of Israel--where/when did that happen?
to some people, any opposition to the current israel border is anti-semitic, and probably hates God too, since they are his "chosen"
read mediamatters.org, to see some of the crap oreilly and malkin have done to cindy sheehan.
When she is protesting the income tax with the "861" argument, you'll know shes gone off the deep end, but this all seems pretty level-headed for now, keeping in mind she is a lone actor, presumably without savvy handlers leading her around.
Sad to see how she has become prey to (both) anti-war sponsors, and now those who inadvertently exploit her frailties. Coming to plate (heavily laden with grief) and without a pragmatic plan of how to take her request to another level, beyond self.
What remains center to her argument is the deep contrast of America's profound emotional indebtedness to its Mothers of the fallen, with that of our enemy in ME, where Mothers must pre-accept their sons in trade for cash, for attacks against our Country..
Humility is not a weakness, so it is sad to see what she is not capable of contributing at this time, being drained out of her.
Roman mothers told their sons to come either carrying their shields or on them. Casey Sheehan came home on his shield but is not allowed to rest in peace. Mrs. Sheehan will also not receive any peace but instead will become even more crazed and bitter than she is now.
Mrs. Sheehan deserves to be scrutinized personally, because she is using her personal life as political capital to further her anti-war position. She publicly called the president a liar (a conclusion that the president and the evidence disputes). As such it is fair to call Mrs. Sheehan a Jew hater for her statements over Israel... after all her statements about Israel are consistent with other known Jew haters.
You can't have your cake and eat it too.
A quick scan of Livy and Herodotus turned up many examples of similar behavior of Spartan and Roman mothers, false memory had it as Roman. The primary source would have been Plutarch, a Greek writing for Romans , finding examples to convince a skeptical audience that the Greeks had the same martial spirit as the Romans. The point I was trying to make is that Mrs. Sheehan has not and probably never will recognize the sacrafices her adult son made for her and our country.
John in Nashville: Didn't you just do the same thing? You went to the personal in the way you focused on Bush – you even saw him as a character in a drama.
Sloanasaurus: I don't think it's fair to infer hatred of Jews from opposition to Israeli policy.
Pat: I think she can understand that, but that she is so adamantly opposed to the war that she's enraged that he died for that cause. It's not a good enough cause to die for to her. If her son were alive, she'd probably have arguments with him about it, but now that he's dead, he can't argue back and can be used to further her anti-war cause.
John in Nashville - that's the best one I've ever heard! .... "the diplomatic inistincts of Santino Corleone"... HA HA I love it! You get some real talented folks here, Ms. Ann.
"...I don't think it's fair to infer hatred of Jews from opposition to Israeli policy....
Althouse: I agree. However, I don't see it as being any less fair than Mrs. Sheehan infering that Bush is a liar because no WMD was found in a Iraq.
Thus, a fair response to Mrs. Sheenhan's personal attacks on Bush (for being a liar) is to point out that she may be a Jew hater.
Okay, Sloan, then answer this, according to your own logic in your last post. I hate you and often throw personal attacks at you: what minority group must I hate because of this??
Hmmm... I am stumped.
Prove Bush is a liar, and then I will prove to you that Mrs. Sheehan is a Jew hater.
Aaron, I think you're my favorite. Left-wing anti-semitism!! You know, because the right is so accepting of everyone. Just today I was speaking with one of my right-wing coworkers, and the phrases "You know how they feel about Spanish-looking people," and "Indians don't know how to act," and "Oh, God. She's Haitian? Kill me now." I've always known conservatives to be the most open-minded and diverse.
I think Aaron is right. Left-wing anti-semitism is based on the classic anti-semitism. It comes straight out of medeival europe. it is based on the fantasy belief that Jews are rich greedy capitalists who use their wealth to put down the workers. In contrast, Nazi anti-semitism was based on "racial purity" in that Jews were corrupting the national identity.
Anti-semitism is a deep engrained disease of Europe that has existed for 1000+ years. I wonder if this deep rooted disease has partially led to Europeans quick "acceptance" of so many muslim immigrants.
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