Cindy Sheehan is no longer just a grieving mother. She's a political opportunist who's taken advantage of celebrity status among the far Left and is armed with a blog on Michael Moore's website.
Camped outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Mrs. Sheehan has become an active political pundit who's willingly battling it out with her conservative critics fighting fire with fire. In her latest post at Michael Moore's website, Sheehan told readers, "The right wingers are really having a field day with me. It hurts me really badly, but I am willing to put up with the crap, if it ends the war a minute sooner than it would have."
It's true conservatives are all over Sheehan's developing divorce story and they shouldn't be. Such matters should be left private but the events are true nonetheless and on the open record. Sheehan says the divorce was in the works long before the protest began. I say it's none of our concern.
But many have legitimate beef with the high-profile protester, saying she's being unfair to the president, who already met with her once and has no intention of meeting with her for a second time.
I wouldn't either, considering Mrs. Sheehan is persistent on brining the troops home when President Bush has made it clear that such a strategy isn't on the table.
We already know what Sheehan would say to the president because she has made her statements public, and that they're conversation would hardly be a tea party. She wants to lecture, and wants to demand an immediate withdrawal out of Iraq - and now even Afghanistan because we have yet to catch Osama bin Laden.
Sheehan's son died over a year ago and it only took President Bush two months to address her concerns. While details of what happened at the gathering are sketchy and hard to confirm, a meeting did take place.
Now Sheehan has suddenly opened up camp at Bush's ranch, and a large following has accompanied her and support her agenda. While she has every right to protest the occupation of Iraq, the pro-war crowd has the right to scrutinize Sheehan, and are glad to refute her radical comments. Just what do the Jews in Palestine have to do with her son or the war in Iraq?
The mainstream media has been a darling to Sheehan, despite her claim that it is nothing but "a propaganda tool for the government." Without the Internet, we "would already be a fascist state." And according to Sheehan, America "is not worth dying for" and "has been killing people . . . since we first stepped foot on this continent." Of course it's no surprise Sheehan is convinced Bush is a liar and that "the Downing Street Memo proves that" Bush "lied to the American people."
And the publicity keeps growing. In her most recent column, Ann Coulter wonders how a grieving mother could earn such publicity. "Call me old-fashioned, but a grief-stricken war mother shouldn't have her own full-time PR flack. After your third profile on 'Entertainment Tonight,' you're no longer a grieving mom; you're a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show."
Coulter continues with this insight: "If one dead son means no one can win an argument with you, how about two dead sons? What if the person arguing with you is a mother who also lost a son in Iraq and she's pro-war? Do we decide the winner with a coin toss? Or do we see if there's a woman out there who lost two children in Iraq and see what she thinks about the war?"
It doesn't matter what any one person has to say, whether they've lost kids in the war or not. This war involves all of us, and a successful outcome in the war on terrorism is crucial to our survival. Whether Iraq should be a part of it will be known soon enough.
