Althouse: Cindy Sheehan.

October 17, 2005

Cindy Sheehan.

No one talks about her anymore. Have you noticed?

UPDATE: Good discussion in the comments, with many suggesting that Sheehan was marginalized for saying too many things that did not fit the specific needs of Democrats. Ironic -- isn't it? -- that she was useful precisely because she is a real person, but proved unusable because she is a real person. I'll give her credit for being more than a political tool. She said what she thought, a lot of which was flaky. It's an interesting lesson for politicos who are thinking of making a real person the centerpiece of a campaign.

30 comments:

Steven said...: Nope.; 10/17/05, 7:27 PM
Richmond said...: Yes, I have noticed. And I am thankful....; 10/17/05, 7:28 PM
reader_iam said...: Yep.

For the general public, I think she'd already exceeded her 15 minutes of fame--and her general welcome--when other events overtook her. I think people welcomed the opportunity to avert their eyes from the train wreck her personal fame was becoming, poor woman.

But she's still alive and well at the Huffington Post ... and, at least in the parts where I live, among some parts of the political spectrum. She's just not getting the mainstream press.; 10/17/05, 7:29 PM
Steve Donohue said...: It's amazing how a little active liberty in Iraq and actual news like, oh, Huricane Katrina, completely wiped away the story. If I recall, the Rosa Parks situation didn't fall apart as soon as the next news cycle came along, showing the absolute idiocy of the comparison in the first place.; 10/17/05, 8:06 PM
Rick said...: I suppose everyone is more interested in which Bush Administration official is going to be indicted first.

Funny that.; 10/17/05, 8:12 PM
Charlie Eklund said...: Yes, I've noted Sheehan's absence with quiet pleasure.

However...Ann...that article you linked to. Criminey. The things that get published these days. Do you think that the writer of that piece considers punctuation to be optional? I found the absent quotation marks and apostrophes to be extremely distracting. So distracting, in fact, that I was unable to enjoy the story of Sheehan's fall from the public eye nearly as much as I would have in a properly punctuated piece.

Unfair!; 10/17/05, 8:25 PM
Charlie Martin said...: Talks about who?; 10/17/05, 8:36 PM
Andrew said...: Shhh! Don't jinx it.; 10/17/05, 8:49 PM
The Drill SGT said...: Andrew beat me to it.

sssh!. Let her go quietly into the night.

She had more than her 15 minutes of fame; 10/17/05, 8:58 PM
Sonic said...: She started the anti-war movement'comeback, now there are tens of thousands more who agree with her.

Whats up Anne, still trying to work out why your usual smear campiagn failed? perhaps we are all getting wise to the old-right's old tricks.; 10/17/05, 9:03 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 10/17/05, 9:14 PM
Unknown said...: It took me a moment to remember who you were talking about.; 10/17/05, 9:25 PM
The Commercial Traveller said...: I love this line from the article to which Ann links: "John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society — an Oakland-based nonprofit which teaches activists how to effectively communicate their message."

A "nonprofit which teaches activists how to . . . communicate"? Good God these people are losers who have no lives. Can you imagine what sitting in on one of these classes would be like?

It sounds like a satire of liberalism.; 10/17/05, 9:32 PM
Matt Brown said...: She's all over the place on Michael Moore's website. Looking at it makes you wonder, where would he be if she hadn't become a media darling?; 10/17/05, 11:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Sonic... said: "She started the anti-war movement'comeback, now there are tens of thousands more who agree with her."

And that is an accomplishment? Geez, a lefty could fart in a puddle on TV and get 'tens of thousands more who agree with' them and slobber at their feet for ten or fifteen media-minutes - but they won't effect history.

There were millions of leftists in the streets a couple of years ago. Even in those numbers they had no real, lasting effect. And today? Most of them are in the constant drooling phase of advanced BDS, and going to physical therapy twice a week to treat paralytic compassionate head tilt syndrome.

Ms. Sheehan farted on the dying embers of that movement causing a minor flare-up amongst the ashes. She then turned around and pissed on that tiny flame with her bone-head pronouncements (occupied New Orleans, etc.), and her growing, obvious, and pathetic narcissism.

Stick a fork in it - it's dead. Again.; 10/17/05, 11:40 PM
Clyde said...: Mother Moonbat got his 16th minute at those antiwar rallies in Washington a few weeks ago. After this past weekend's successful constitutional election in Iraq, Mother Moonbat doesn't get a 17th minute, and thank the god of your parents' choice for that.

I loved that article's headline: "Peace Mom Slips From Public Stage." I hope she didn't injure herself.; 10/18/05, 12:35 AM
AST said...: I thought that fifteen minutes would never end. The pundits who said it was due to the fact that August doesn't have any news because everybody is out of Washington may have been right.; 10/18/05, 12:42 AM
Noah Boddie said...: I notice the MSM never, ever mentioned the contingent of neo-nazis that came to support her.; 10/18/05, 6:02 AM
goesh said...: Thanks for the memory, Ms. Ann. I had forgotten all about her. She had her moment in the sun, then became a shadow, sort of like the hoola-hoop. You remember those, don't you? Cindy kept spinning the same message around and around herself.; 10/18/05, 6:21 AM
Diggs said...: Let's not forget Cindy "Casey who?" Sheehan so quickly. Of the nearly 2000 Gold-Star Mothers from OIF, the lefties latched onto a raving anti-Semite, pure America-hater. That shouldn't be swept under the rug too quickly. In fact, it should be brought up again, and again. I think that she should be given a chance to speak at every opportunity. Her whole message belies the "We Support the Troops" bull that the lefties are so quick to spout. She got her national media attention through our sympathy for her loss and respect for her son's service. Let her use that public forum to spread her hatred; it's what the left is best at now, and she's been embraced by the left wholeheartedly.; 10/18/05, 6:31 AM
KCFleming said...: Ah Cindy, what a sad, strange woman, off to the Land of Misfit Former 15 Minute Celebrities.

I wonder when she'll figure out that she's being used by the Left? She's been let in to be with the popular kids for awhile, while it suits them, but will soon be ignored in the hallway and sitting at the loser table at lunch.

I predict she'll either go mad, or get religion. (A book would be a truly pathetic cry for help, with its remainder markings, in the leprous book bin at Wal-Mart. Don't do it Cindy! Put the keyboard Down!); 10/18/05, 7:19 AM
sammy small said...: Isn't it about time for a Cindy vs. Tanya Harding boxing match?; 10/18/05, 8:13 AM
JBlog said...: A truly tragic person. In her grief at the loss of her son, she lost her entire family.

I feel sorry for her.; 10/18/05, 11:52 AM
Mr. Dart said...: The left and their handmaiden press used her and when through kicked her to the curb. The anti-American war protest crowd would still be using her but the press dropped her so she became useless. The press dropped her the day after she called their own personal hero, McCain, a warmonger.; 10/18/05, 12:49 PM
Spacemonkey said...: Of all the things she's lost I wonder if she even misses her mind.; 10/18/05, 1:35 PM
JBlog said...: I actually don't blame her -- if any of us lost a child, he might lose his mind too.

We expect people who are crazy with grief to say crazy things -- that doesn't mean we take what they say seriously, but we expect it and we even give them room to do it.

But I blame the vultures and leeches in the antiwar movement and the media who have exploited her grief, turning her into a carnival act. It's cruel.

So much for liberals being so much more sensitive and caring than the rest of us.; 10/18/05, 3:35 PM
Simon said...: It seems to me that the only reason she got any play in the first palce was that it was summer and there was simply no other news. The moment there was news that was interesting in the slightest, she was relegated to her natural place on the food chain, which is to say: no where.

Here is a woman who callously manipulated her son's death to advance her political cause. The part that is really bemusing is why anyone on the left - who, presumably, are keen to lose the "hysterical" part of their "hysterical liberal" tag - felt like it was a good idea to identify with her.; 10/18/05, 9:13 PM
chuck b. said...: Luck you. She's still in the news in the bay area. Someone's protesting her scheduled appearance at a Veteran's Day memorial in Berkeley. Someone's calling the protest censorship.

Kill me now.; 10/18/05, 9:36 PM
Jim C. said...: Brando said, "...her larger mission of questioning the naked and clue-phoneless emperor, which is even being championed by many on the right, is alive and growing. And the specific issue of 'what noble cause?' in Iraq is far from dead."

Only in that echo chamber you mistake for reality. Talk about "clue-phoneless"!; 10/18/05, 9:51 PM
Mark said...: Guy said

"And, the war is still wrong on a myriad of levels"

Such myriad levels as....?; 10/19/05, 7:11 PM