For Cindy Sheehan, it was only a matter of time.

The self-proclaimed “Face of the Anti-War Movement” – such as it is – has decided to retire from the fray and try and find some peace in her own life:

I am going to take whatever I have left and go home. I am going to go home and be a mother to my surviving children and try to regain some of what I have lost. I will try to maintain and nurture some very positive relationships that I have found in the journey that I was forced into when Casey died and try to repair some of the ones that have fallen apart since I began this single-minded crusade to try and change a paradigm that is now, I am afraid, carved in immovable, unbendable and rigidly mendacious marble.

Her reasons? They are many and varied but basically, she wants to quit because no one is listening to her anymore. She has been used up and spit out by a news media that demands drama, pathos, conflict, and above all, something new every day out of its media heroes. And Sheehan, at first portrayed as noble, then single minded, then weird, and now pathetic has seen her time on the national stage run out like a coin operated peep show that goes dark because we’ve stopped putting money into the slot.

I wasn’t the only one who predicted her ultimate fate. But when I wrote this a year and a half ago, the writing was on the wall already:

And Sheehan, once hailed as the Madonna of the American anti-war movement among the more mainstream Democrats finds almost all of her erstwhile supporters tip-toeing away hoping no one will notice or remember that they and their allies in the media made her such into such a heroic figure. No peacenik Joan of Arc she…

Sophocles rightly said “Only the dead are free from pain.” For Cindy Sheehan, there will come a time when she prays for the playwright’s wisdom to overtake her folly.

Most of the reaction on the left has been sympathetic with angry words for Democratic lawmakers who won’t commit political suicide and jump over the cut and run cliff with the rest of the netnuts and support either an immediate end to the war – as Sheehan and the hard left advocate – or try and defund the troops via the chimerical solution of timetables.

But in trying to assess Sheehan’s impact on the anti-war “movement” – which despite the polls showing Americans disgusted with Bush and the war, to this day still looks more like a disorganized rabble of anarchists, greenies, anti-globalists, conspiracy nuts, and Bush hating bloggers – one needs to look at how her crusade morphed from a vigil held outside of Bush’s Texas ranch in an effort manufacture a “Chief Brody slap” moment into a global crusade that included cozying up to anti-American fascists like Hugo Chavez and associations with anti-Semitic groups like the “Crawford Peace House” who posits outrageous conspiracy theories about Jews.

Sheehan was captured wholly and truly by a subset of the left that is not interested in ending the war as much as they are determined to bring down the established order in the United States through any means necessary. They are not mainstream in any sense of the word. The list of groups allied to her cause read like a Who’s Who of anti-American zealotry. And while she tried to disavow some of these supporters – including several openly racist and anti-Semitic neo-Nazi organizations – the stench of their nauseating ideologies became too much for most mainstream Democrats as well as the press who eventually let her slide into obscurity.

As far as more mainstream opposition to the war, Sheehan’s sins were either forgiven or ignored. All this group ever saw was the motherly visage, the genuine tears of sorrow at her tragic loss, and her over the top, exaggerated anti-Bush rhetoric that was quoted lovingly on lefty websites with the explanation that she was “speaking truth to power.” How calling New Orleans an “occupied city” and advocating the looting of stores because, after all, it’s just “stuff,” can be considered anything except the wild rantings of a disturbed woman is beyond me.

Tammy Bruce deconstructs Sheehan’s blog post that I linked above, pointing out the cloying self pity and self-serving nature of the screed. Here, she translates a few of Sheehan’s ravings:

6. I wasted all my money and ignored my family to try to prove to myself I am not the attention whore that apparently I am. (“I have also reached the conclusion that if I am doing what I am doing because I am an “attention whore” then I really need to be committed.”)

7. America is an ungrateful bitch. (“I have invested everything I have into trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither.”)

8. I’m in debt and won’t pay my bills because America is evil. (“my hospital bills from last summer (when I almost died) are in collection because I have used all my energy trying to stop this country from slaughtering innocent human beings.”)

9. Americans are stupid and vapid and don’t care. (“Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months.”)

10. Everyone is jealous of me because I get all the attention. (“This group won’t work with that group; he won’t attend an event if she is going to be there; and why does Cindy Sheehan get all the attention anyway?”)

11. Everyone is doomed, so I’m getting out while I can. (“Our brave young men and women in Iraq have been abandoned there indefinitely by their cowardly leaders who move them around like pawns on a chessboard of destruction and the people of Iraq have been doomed to death and fates worse than death …I am going to take whatever I have left and go home.”)

12. I need money. (“Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford , Texas ? I will consider any reasonable offer.”)

A strange mixture of sincere, grief stricken mom and shameless anti-war huckster, she. And I can’t help reflecting on the fact that the adversity faced by other boat rockers in American history – Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony, Margaret Sanger, Al Lowenstein, and Frederick Douglas to name a few – make Sheehan’s “ordeal” look like a walk in the park. All of those worthies had much higher mountains to climb and extremely powerful forces arrayed against them. They never quit. They all kept fighting to their dying breath for what they believed in. It makes Sheehan’s pathetic blatherings and whiny, self-absorbed musings seem wretchedly shallow and insincere by comparison.

The left may find cause to congratulate her and wish her well. My hope is that she returns home and seeks out a competent mental health professional to help her overcome the devastating loss of her son. I don’t expect her to recant her radicalism. But I think a little perspective gained would ease her suffering and perhaps bring a bit of peace into her tumultuous and ultimately tragic life.

UP TO 20,000 KNOXVILLE RESIDENTS TURNED OUT TO WELCOME HOME TENNESSEE’S 287TH REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM FROM IRAQ

It was almost a year ago that we were subjected by the press to non-stop, wall to wall coverage of the vigil outside of the President’s ranch by that Maven of Peace, that Rosa Parks of the Anti-War Movement, that Mother of Moonbats Cindy Sheehan.

We were told at the time that, like a comet that portends the future, Sheehan’s mass movement would sweep aside George Bush and the Republicans while bringing the troops in Iraq home. This unstoppable mass of humanity would be a powerful force for change that was growing every day and one might as well stand in front of a freight train as try and stop it.

But something strange happened on Mother Sheehan’s ride toward immortality; hardly anyone else got on the train with her:

To this day, Sheehan is still a player in search of an audience, still desperately seeking attention as saner liberals tip toe away in embarrassment having once supported her. The fact that her unhinged rhetoric (she once called New Orleans “an occupied city”) has made her a laughingstock on the right still doesn’t seem to stop the media from writing glowing paeans to her and her cause.

I bring this up because yesterday, the residents of Knoxville showed Sheehan and all the other lefties what a real mass movement is: patriotic Americans welcoming home troops and thanking them for a job well done:

Up to 20,000 people turned out Saturday for a parade to welcome home the National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team, providing a big-city atmosphere powered by small-town values.

The rains that had been pelting the region ceased and the clouds gave way to bright sunshine for the two-hour Celebrate Freedom Parade 2006 through downtown Knoxville.

“What a great sight this is on the street today,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen as he reviewed the 2,500 members of the 278th standing in parade formation wearing their camouflage uniforms. As governor, Bredesen is commander of the Tennessee National Guard.

Bredesen said the men and women of the 278th who were deployed to Iraq for a year represent “what is the very best of our state and the very best of our nation.”

“I thank you for your courage and sacrifices,” the governor told the soldiers. “You left as trained citizens and you came back as warriors.”

Kudos to the Governor and the residents of Knoxville for showing the rest of America how to really support the troops.

Hopefully, this will give other cities and towns the idea to show our heroes how much we truly appreciate their sacrifices and respect the job that they and their comrades still in harms way are doing to advance the cause of freedom in Iraq.

And then there is this from a father who lost a son in Iraq who came out to welcome home his dead son’s friends and comrades:

Gary Lee Reese Sr., of Ashland City, Tenn., lost his 22-year-old son Sgt. Gary L. Reese Jr. on Aug. 13, 2005, to a similar [IED] device. Serving in Iraq, Reese said, provided his son a perspective on life he never would have gained otherwise.

“I think the soldiers saw that these people should have the opportunity to have what we have,” Reese said. “He stood up for the right thing, and I’m very proud of that,” Reese said. He added he rarely saw a picture of his son in Iraq without children surrounding the soldier.

“Those little kids who got to know Lee knew he wasn’t there to teach them how to strap bombs on. He was there to help them have what he has.

“I know his life wasn’t wasted because he gave those children an opportunity see who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”

We’ll give John Hinderaker the last word:

Amid all of the adoring publicity that is lavished on extremists like Cindy Sheehan, or malcontents like the seven now-famous generals, couldn’t the dominant media find just a moment to take note of Mr. Reese’s inexpressibly noble perspective on his son’s life and death?

It’s been a while since I paid any attention to the “catalyst for the anti-war movement,” Cindy Sheehan. This is not because she has dropped below the radar of the mainstream press because she hasn’t. Her recent foray into international politics has guaranteed that her 15 minutes of fame usually vouchsafed by the media will keep being renewed like some horrible sitcom that refuses to die. Her trip to the socialist paradise of Venezuela last month where she played kissy-face with one of the most nauseating leaders on the planet is a case in point.

Hugo Chavez is not only an anti-American Latin lefty thug but also one of the weirdest dictators you’re likely to run into. His weekly four-hour rants are broadcast nationwide. The name of the show “Hello President,” features Chavez reading newspapers and commenting on the issues of the day. One recent show lasted 6 hours. Considering that Americans won’t even watch George Clooney for three hours, it tells you something about this guy’s ego that he actually believes the long-suffering people of Venezuela tune in to watch this comedian do his schtick. At least Cuba’s Fidel Castro has a captive audience during his weekly 3 hour ravings, as the Commandante appears on all broadcast and radio channels at the same time. Chavez has to compete with soccer, Latin music shows, and other more uplifting programs which probably mean that his ratings are as close to zero as can be imagined.

But that didn’t stop our peace mom from appearing with him at something called the “World Social Forum,” an annual gathering of anti-war and anti-globalization activists. During a live “Hello President” insomnia-curing show, Chavez showed why the CIA would be doing the world a huge favor if they deposed this fellow:

Chavez said Sheehan had invited him to join her April protest at Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch. Sheehan, whose 24-year-old soldier son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004, held a vigil outside Bush’s ranch during the president’s vacation in August, attracting some 12,000 peace activists and reinvigorating the national anti-war movement.

“Maybe I’ll put up my tent also,” Chavez said, to applause from an audience invited to his weekly broadcast on the final day of the World Social Forum, an annual gathering of anti-war and anti-globalization activists.

Chavez said his government would help protest the war in Iraq by supporting a drive to gather petitions and delivering them to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Chavez, who before the war in Iraq had friendly relations with Saddam Hussein, has been a frequent and strident critic of the war.

First, it is important to note that this story was written by the Associated Press, consistently one of Sheehan’s biggest boosters. The use of the figure “12,000” protesters at Crawford is laughably over-inflated. Sheehan, by order of the local Sheriff, had about 200 people camping out with her at any one time during her 5 week stay in Crawford, Texas. That, plus the fact that no “event” conjured up by her handlers and PR gurus ever drew more than 2-3,000 people puts the lie to that AP figure. There were never anywhere near 12,000 anti-war activists at any one time within 50 miles of the President’s ranch.

It is just one more example of the media’s desire to portray Sheehan as the head of a massive grass roots movement to end the war. There is plenty of dissatisfaction by both the right and the left with the way that things are going in Iraq. But to date, that unease has not translated into the kind of massive protests seen during the Viet Nam War. But that hasn’t seemed to stop the media – and the AP especially from turning Sheehan into some kind of peace goddess. Check out this AP piece that appeared today and tell me if you don’t get the sense that there’s a halo surrounding Sheehan:

Still liable to tear up when talking about her son, she says her issue is right and wrong, not left and right. She points out that she has criticized Democrats, including Feinstein, for their war stance and has no problem supporting Republicans who oppose the war.

She is co-founder of the nonprofit Gold Star Families for Peace, wrote a book “Not One More Mother’s Child,” and is working on another.

She gets help from groups including CODEPINK, a national woman’s peace group, and Veterans for Peace. Her own operation is small – herself, her sister and someone who helps out from time to time answering e-mail.

First of all, CODEPINK is much, much more than just a “woman’s peace group.” It is one of the more radical anti-globalization, anti-war, and pro-Palestinian groups out there. The fact that there are precious few mentions of the stomach-turning anti-semitism spouted by Sheehan should tell you that for far too long, the press has protected Sheehan by leaving out her incredibly viral anti-Semitic and anti-American rants and, instead concentrated on this poor little suburban mom who only wanted to meet with the President to ask him why her son had to die. That the press would have the effrontery to actually think that anyone older than 5 years of age believed that shows how desperate some in the press are to have the fantasies they write about with regard to an anti-war movement come true.

In the end, there simply is no massive wave of unrest over the war. There isn’t even the beginnings of it. What we have are the very same people who opposed the Iraq war in the first place, making the same arguments and tossing about the same blood libels about the Jews, the “neocons,” big oil, and Bush “cronies.” It’s enough to make one sick except we’ve grown so used to it by now that it has simply faded into the background cacophony of media bile spilled over the President and the war.

Sheehan will continue to be trotted out now and again in the hopes that her presence will add “legitimacy” to the anti-war crowd. But until the American people themselves – who are at best ambivalent at the moment about our continuing presence in Iraq – become convinced that the troops should come home and back that up with the kind of outrage we saw 40 years ago, Sheehan will remain a curiosity, an afterthought created by the media and manipulated by radicals who would like nothing better than to see the United States humiliated and their own radical socialist agenda become the law of the land.

Cindy Sheehan, AKA “The Madonna of the Anti-War Movement,” AKA “The Catalyst of the Anti-War Movement,” AKA “The Grieving Mother Who is a Catalyst for the Anti-War Movement,” AKA “The Rosa Parks of the Anti War Movement,” AKA “Mother” Sheehan…

Jeez! The woman has more aliases than Jennifer Garner.

Here is a picture of Cindy surrounded by her adoring throngs of admirers as she waltzes toward the White House and her date with destiny: (HT: Little Green Footballs)

Nice photo, huh? Looks like Cindy is followed by legions of supporters marching toward the White House in that determined, earnest, lefty sort of way that reminds one of pictures of the Bolshies marching in the streets of Moscow in 1917.

Hell, even the news stories about Sheehan’s storming the White House are reminiscent of a revolutionary’s trek toward destiny:

Three weeks after leaving their dusty outpost in Crawford, Tex., and touring the country, several dozen families brought their antiwar message to the U.S. Capitol and the White House. They plan to join thousands of protesters Saturday at a march and rally on the Mall.

“Not one more!” they chanted as they walked up the West Lawn of the Capitol, referring to the number of U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq.

One of the buses stopped in Baltimore yesterday morning so the families could address a crowd of supporters gathered at Timothy Dean’s Bistro on Eastern Avenue. People wiped away tears as they listened to soldiers’ parents rail against the war that had claimed their children’s lives—or threatened to do so.

The picture and story would lead you to believe that Sheehan is head of a mass movement, an unstoppable tide of humanity that will sweep George Bush and his war into the dustbin of history.

Not so fast. Here’s a wide view of the very same picture from above:

(HT: Confederate Yankee)

There are more legs on a centipede than there are people following Cindy Sheehan.

I frankly don’t care how many people show up at the anti-war rally in Washington this weekend. The organizers have made it clear that this is a march for “Peace and Justice” which means exactly the same crowd that showed up in New York during the Republican Convention will make an appearance on the Washington Mall this weekend. Most of the marchers will be not be demonstrating under the anti-war banner but instead, like all leftist rallies lately, will highlight topics as diverse as the environment, income redistribution, African debt relief, AIDS, homelessness, the mentally ill, and of course, the anarchists who seek out cameras like moths do a porch light.

This rally will probably mark the end of Mother Sheehan’s notoriety. And while they won’t do it, both the media and the more mainstream elements of the Democratic party should examine their motives in supporting this woman as long as they did. The fact that they would probably like us all to forget that fact says more about their towering arrogance and breathtaking stupidity than it does about Mother Sheehan’s ultimate demise.

Cindy Sheehan is a living photoshop image. Set her down anywhere on the planet, put a microphone within 10 feet of her, and out of her mouth will spew the counterintuitive, the illogical, and the jaw dropping rants of a half-crazed, drooling dervish; a maddening combination of weepy radicalism and angry ideologue. Her appearances, now carefully scripted and choreographed, have degenerated into caricatures of her once tearful soliloquies. She has truly and totally been captured by the revolutionary left.

Does she realize what her benefactors have done to her?

These are not your garden variety leftist lickspittles who are holding Cindy Sheehan hostage. The hard-eyed men and women who now surround her are not interested in political change except as it can be used to achieve their revolutionary ends. People like Cindy Sheehan (unwittingly?) and Ward Churchill (willingly) are stage actors in their Grand Drama of the Republic. They are the cockroaches of our culture who thrive on chaos, grow strong in disaster, and whose message resonates the most with those on the fringes of society.

Thus are the armies of the revolution built.

They have learned their revolutionary craft at the feet of the masters. Lenin, Mao, and Hitler all came to power amidst chaos and unrest following some great upheaval. Revolutionary Russia seethed with discontent but it took the massive societal dislocations of the Great War to hasten the advent of Bolshievism. Mao’s ultimate victory was sealed in the immediate aftermath of World War II as the 4 year Chinese Civil War ravaged the countryside and cost up to 6 million lives. And Hitler came to prominence and power first when the hyperinflation of the mark impoverished the middle class in the early 1920’s and later as the Great Depression destroyed it.

So what better place for Cindy Sheehan to bring her Magical Mystery Tour Bus than the storm ravaged city of New Orleans. Not only will she be able to rail against her imagined nemesis President Bush, but her script supervisors and image consultants have some wonderful visuals they can use for the travelogue DVD they are making of this quixotic, cross country defeatist tour. Are they consciously trying to evoke memories of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and their coast to coast “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests” where, besotted with drink and tripping the light fantastic on LSD, Kesey sought a changed reality that included being able to experience the psychedelic without the use of drugs?

I doubt whether the sourpuss lefties who are running Sheehan actually have the sense of humor to understand what Kesey was trying to accomplish so any parallel would be purely accidental. And Sheehan herself, suburban and sheltered for most of her life, acts the part of someone who has been so intellectually starved that the radical ideas she’s been exposed to hit her full force and bowl her over, so raw and powerful are the emotions engendered by the combination of the loss of her son and the imagined gain of a belief system that explains that horrible fact.

Sheehan on the tragedy in New Orleans:

I don’t care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don’t care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don’t care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don’t fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest.

That quote could have come from “A Communist Revolutionary Handbook” stressing as it does the brotherhood of man, the evils of capitalism, the wildly exaggerated rhetorical flourish of “occupied” New Orleans, and a call for a “new Administration” despite the fact that even if Sheehan and her cohorts got their wish and George Bush rode off into the sunset (or climbed the steps of a guillotine) his Vice President, whose connections to Haliburton have been fodder for leftist bombast since Mr. Cheney took the oath of office, would carry on pretty much as before.

These are truly the bottom feeders of American politics. And Sheehan, once hailed as the Madonna of the American anti-war movement among the more mainstream Democrats finds almost all of her erstwhile supporters tip-toeing away hoping no one will notice or remember that they and their allies in the media made her such into such a heroic figure. No peacenik Joan of Arc she. There will be no Sheehan led assault on the still 2/3 majority idea that we must stay in Iraq until the job is done. Now she looks behind her and instead of seeing throngs of admirers she sees the crouching tigers and hidden dragons who only see the war as a way to divide America so they can conquer her.

Should we pity her loss? Yes, but for how much longer? When does her radicalism negate whatever sacrifice she has given in the effort to defeat Islamism, that other radical ideology whose rhetoric about the west and America is so similar that it could have been born of the same mother’s tongue? In Sheehan’s case, her message of hate will continue to fade until only the echoes of abomination and self-loathing are heard in the mostly empty halls and rooms of a radical on the declining slope of noteriety.

Sophocles rightly said “Only the dead are free from pain.” For Cindy Sheehan, there will come a time when she prays for the playwright’s wisdom to overtake her folly.

UPDATE

For a true and proper fisking of Mrs. Sheehan’s idiocy, AJ at Strata-Sphere is a must read.

Goldstein adds some thoughts from Billy Jack.

LGF (whose server crashed when Drudge linked the original post) has some truly great and funny thoughts in the comment section.

John Cole has an interesting picture of Mother Sheehan fraternizing with the enemy.

John Hawkins thinks Sheehan still is “an influential and beloved figure on the left, and she obviously speaks for much of the anti-war crowd in this country.” I disagree, although she’ll have one last major hurrah at the anti-war rally in Washington next week. After that, only C-Span will have any interest in her.

Sister Toldjah has a revelation regarding one of Cindy Sheehan’s new friends in Louisinana.

I’ve written about this before and I’m going to keep writing about it because it bears repeating. If Cindy Sheehan has energized the anti-war movement, if she’s “ignited a prairie fire of sentiment against the war” that’s sweeping the country, and if our Griever in Chief is the “Rosa Parks” of the opposition to the Iraq War would someone please give me a straight answer to a very simple, very straightforward question:

WHERE ARE ALL THE PROTESTERS?

It took a little digging, but I was able to discover that there are less than 200 people camping out with Mother Sheehan in Crawford with perhaps another 1,500 people in and around the town on any given day. While the number of campers is kept low due to space limitations, that 1,500 number appears to be pretty solid. And not all of those people are there for the protest. Many are connected with the so-called “Crawford Peace House” whose anti-semitic activities have been well documented elsewhere.

The other night, folk singer and legendary anti-war activist Joan Baez drew around 200 people to a free concert near the camp site. Also, this blogger took the trouble to add up names from three Guest Books which had been placed around Camp Casey and discovered 750 signatures – not from one day but from more than 2 weeks of protests.

It’s like this “mass movement” exists only on a Hollywood sound stage. When the cameras are turned off, it disappears like smoke from a fog machine wafting up into the rafters. It’s bogus. It’s a lie. It’s one gigantic photo-op staged for the benefit of the press whose seeming indifference to some of the truly kooky things Sheehan has said (not to mention the nauseating anti-semitic rants of Mother Sheehan and her supporters) is almost beyond comprehension.

Cindy Sheehan is not Rosa Parks. She’s Carrie Underwood, the completely made for TV “star” that Fox created out of whole cloth on their show American Idol. Cindy Sheehan has been manufactured. Piece by counterfeit piece, the legend of Mother Sheehan has been built from scratch. What started out as some left wing nut of a mother and her genuine grief at the loss of her son being shamelessly used by the hard, anti-war left to raise their pitiful profile has now morphed into a media event complete with PR flaks, political advisers, and media gurus who have turned her Quixote like protest into the signature image of a movement with nothing and nobody behind it.

Even the Moveon.org sponsored anti-war “Peace Vigils” last week – 1600 of them if you believe the propaganda (a number never confirmed by any news organization but used in every single account by the press reporting on that night’s activities) drew paltry numbers of people. Some blogging accounts put the number of activists at many of these protests at a dozen or less. And the estimate of 1600 protests is from the same folks who said there were 500,000 people in the streets of New York City during the main protest at the Republican Convention. Less hysterical and more professional crowd counters – the New York City police – put the number at 150,000.

This Washington Post article on the “dueling protests” in Crawford yesterday is a perfect example of how the national media has chosen to promote the anti-war uber mother:

In three weeks, Sheehan, who lost her 24-year-old son, Army Spec. Casey Sheehan, in Iraq last year, has become the face of an invigorated antiwar movement. She has drawn praise from scores of supporters as well as condemnation from conservatives who believe she is motivated by a political agenda that dishonors fallen soldiers.

“Why are we allowing him to continue to kill our kids, because he’s killed so many already?” she asked. She then invited the crowd to turn toward Bush’s ranch and chant “Not one more”—not one more death—10 times so that the president might hear.

Her protest, timed to coincide with Bush’s vacation and the usual news vacuum in August, mirrors the country’s increasing fractiousness over the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Sheehan has said that if she fails to get a second audience with Bush before her self-imposed deadline of Wednesday, she will lead a bus tour to Washington, where she says she will set up a permanent vigil.

Is the anti-war movement “invigorated?” I’ve seen no sign of it. There’s been a lot of ink spilled saying that but where are the bodies? Where’s the passion? Where’s the organization? Where’s the “mass movement?”

WHERE ARE ALL THE PROTESTERS?

You’d never find the answer to that question in the Washington Post article. Somehow that fact got lost on the composing room floor. What does the Washington Times say?

Meanwhile, busloads of war protesters gathered several miles away at “Camp Casey,” named for Mrs. Sheehan’s 24-year-old son.

A bell-ringing ceremony at the camp honored soldiers serving in Iraq. Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 2,000, but it appeared smaller.

“I know that the Camp Casey movement is going to end the war in Iraq,” Mrs. Sheehan said after folk singer Joan Baez led supporters in singing “Amazing Grace.”

The Times estimated the pro-war crowd at about 1,500. The NRO’s Eric Pfeiffer puts the number (quoting AP) at 3,000. Needless to say, the spur of the moment “Move America Forward” pro war rally organized in less than a week outdrew someone whose name, face, and cause has been plastered all over the media for more than a fortnight.

I believe it’s time to challenge the left and their allies in the media to start giving us some hard facts on the size and scope of the anti-war movement rather than relying on “impressions” and passing them off as news. Anecdotal evidence won’t do. The latest polls show that most Americans disagree with the President’s handling of the war. Hell, any conservative blogger worth their salt is criticizing the President’s handling of some aspect of the Iraq War. It’s a silly question that doesn’t mean anything. The question that really matters is how many Americans want to cut and run from Iraq – the position being advocated by Cindy Sheehan and the leftist lickspittles who are shamelessly using her grief to advance their radical agenda. And that number has remained overwhelmingly in favor of the President. By more than 2 to 1 in the latest Gallup, Rasumssen, and Washington Post poll, Americans say that we should remain in Iraq until the job is done.

That’s the number that counts. And despite a media campaign manufactured, massaged, and manipulated by professionals whose skills in creating illusions rival those of a magician or a Hollywood special effects house, the number of people who actually support Mrs. Sheehan and her increasingly violent rhetorical attacks on the President, on her opponents, on other mothers who have lost loved ones in Iraq, and on America itself is not growing into some critical mass of people that will explode like the protests of a generation ago against Viet Nam. Rather, it appears that Mother Sheehan’s support is drawn from the same tired old left, old guard, blame America firsters whose numbers continue to dwindle as old age, senility, and a dissolute lifestyle catch up with them.

UPDATE

Lori Byrd at Polipundit notices the same lack of anti-war enthusiasm:

For all the publicity Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war groups are receiving, they are not attracting large numbers of people. This says more to me than the recent public opinion polls. When the steady drumbeat from the MSM is that we are losing in Iraq, it is understandable that many would express disapproval of the way things are going there. I believe that the most passion, however, is with those who support the troops and their mission. We should take every opportunity available to express that support – even if it does not get much attention from the MSM. Through email, talk radio, and the blogs, the message will eventually get through to those serving in Iraq.

Yup.

Jay Tea at Wizbang hits the nail on the head with this post about other questions Mother Moonbat should be asking Bush:

But while she’s there, perhaps she’ll take a moment or two to bring up a couple of other matters. She might ask President Bush why he’s the “biggest terrorist in the world.” She could inquire why he “and his indecent bandits traitorously had intelligence fabricated.”

And while she has the “lying bastard” and “maniac’s” undivided attention, she might bring up her solution to the Middle East problem—“you get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”

While she’s there, maybe she could give the President the “Chief Brody Slap”...it’s what she wants anyway.

And yes Mr. Joyner, it is a nice day for a Sunday drive!

UPDATE II

Welcome LGF Readers! Thanks to Charles for the link. Here’s another Cindy Sheehan post you may enjoy on her upcoming bus tour:

SHEEHAN: I AM THE WALRUS

UPDATE III

Little Green Footballs actually has some pictures that prove the point of this post.

I see some intelligent comments from the lizardoids about hurricane Katrina pushing Cindy off the nets followed by the Roberts confirmation starting next week.

Good point. Except this hurricane looks like it could be the worst natural disaster in American history and if, God help us, it stays on course, just about everything else will pale in comparison to what those people in New Orleans will be going through for a very long time.

If you haven’t seen the numbers, they’re talking about 100,000 people being homeless with the city itself uninhabitable for weeks. FEMA has activated its catastrophic disaster plan – the kind they’d use for a massive terrorist attack or a truly horrifying earthquake – and they’re putting people up in the Superdome. The economic hit could be as massive as 9/11.

Cindy Sheehan’s crusade should be relegated to the ash heap of history because she’s taking part in a fraud. It’s ironic, and typical of the MSM, that a natural disaster will accomplish that fact and not any well deserved disapprobation on the part of the media or the people.

I just can’t wait.

In six days the “Mother Sheehan Magical Mystery Tour” will depart from Crawford, Texas and slowly wend its way toward Washington, D.C. where it’s scheduled to arrive on September 24. That’s the day set aside for every loon, goon, moonbat, March hare, and various vagrants to appear on the Washington Mall for a rally against any and all things Bush, Republican, and to a large extent, American.

Oh what a time it will be.

I’m mighty tempted to join in myself just to soak up the atmosphere and relive the glories of my youth where it was the fashion to attend anti-war demonstrations so that you could show your solidarity with the brave Vietnamese resistance to American imperialism. It was also a fact that hippie girls were easy as was access to some great weed. Put the two together and you could have one hell of a party without really trying.

For Mother Sheehan, the bus trip will be reminiscent of of one of the strangest Beatle’s albums (and movies) the fab four ever made. Magical Mystery Tour told the story of a bus trip taken by the Beatles through the English countryside where they meet the strangest bunch of kooks and characters including someone Sheehan should be very familiar with; The Fool on the Hill:

Well on his way his head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him,
Or the sound he appears to make,
And he never seems to notice,
But the fool on the hill . .

The Lennon-McCartney lyrics call to mind the times perfectly; a colorful, carefree kind of harmless nonsense with the war’s darkness always lurking in the background. These lyrics to I am the Walrus epitomize that concept:

Expert textpert choking smokers,
Don’t you think the joker laughs at you?
See how they smile like pigs in a sty,
See how they snied.
I’m crying.

Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower.
Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna.
Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob…

Also reminiscent of the 1960’s was the little piece of guerrilla theater put on yesterday by Sheehan and her supporters:

The antiwar protesters responded Thursday with an emotional ceremony, carried live on national television, in which Sheehan was presented with the boots worn by her son before he was killed. She tearfully laid them before a small cross bearing her son’s name, surrounded by dozens of supporters. There were sobs from other women whose sons were killed in Iraq.

I have no doubt Sheehan’s tears as well as the tears of others there were genuine. However, when you hire a public relations firm and have a dozen or more political “handlers” advising on the protest, the fact that this little slice of “reality” was broadcast live makes the entire “event” fair game for critics like me who would have thought the gesture much more heartfelt if carried out in private – like the President’s visit with Mrs. Sheehan following the death of her son.

The event was put on for the cameras. And for the left to continue to use this woman’s grief as a rallying cry for cutting and running in Iraq is worse than ghoulish. It’s a sad reminder of the utter contempt the left holds for the American people and America itself.

UPDATE

Meanwhile, the semi-official blog of Mother Sheehan’s catered Jamboree Camp Casey Now continues to sound a couple of discordant notes in this anti-American symphony.

First, they complained that there weren’t enough people camping out with her (150 as of Wednesday), something I pointed out here:

If Cindy Sheehan is the “Rosa Parks” of the peace movement, if she’s the second coming of Martin Luther King or the “tipping point” that will energize the anti war movement and turn it into a raging prairie fire that will sweep evil George and his neocons from office, how come there are less than 100 people camping out at salon de Cindee in Crawford?

For God’s sake, Waco, a city of more than 100,000, is just a hop skip and a jump from Crawford. Are you trying to tell me with a city of that size and that close that you can’t even get the local loonies to come out and show their support for Sheehan?

Not only was there a complaint of not enough moonbats, the ones who were there were taken to task for being lazy!

Why are activists spending time cooking and cleaning etc… they should be spend most of their time building (tent city, signs, more crosses), educating the media, doing something pro-active to get more numbers there. They should be doing everything imaginable to get the truth covered by the mainstream media, like making banners or flyers with things like, “The Downing Street Memo is equivalent to the Watergate Tapes” and placing them everywhere, so any mainstream newscast from Camp Casey will have something in the background. Beware of ineffective signs… misinformation agents will gladly volunteer for the task then make it illegible, or put bad slogans, etc…

Now the problem appears to be that they’re having such a good time in Crawford, there’s some question as to why they want to leave so early:

Why? Labor Day is a huge travel holiday… why not advertise Crawford, Texas as the site of the Great American Campout this Labor Day Weekend. I don’t know for sure, but in all likelihood our vacationing President will stay thru the weekend- why the rush to disband Camp Casey? Why the rush to announce the camp’s demise- if not to kill the momentum.

Is Ann Wright’s plan the best plan for the peace movement? Do the caravans really need those extra 5 days?

The moonbat wants to advertise a “Labor Day at Camp Casey” that would draw thousands, thousands I tell you!

This will be paid for by the $125,000 or more in donations already received. $10,000 in lumber and in canvas, and 100 volunteers with cordless drills could whip up a slew of quick tent frames that could fit a family or two.

If we advertise this widely- we could get many, many thousands of people to come to Crawford to make a real statement. Which would be more powerful in affecting change, caravans leaving the 31st, or the Great American Campout in Crawford? Am I being divisive just because, or is there actual logic behind this proposal.

Logic? At Camp Casey? When you find some kid, let me know.

UPDATE

With both Al Sharpton and the Neo-Nazis on their way to Crawford, Goldstein has the line of the day:

I see. A bit of logistical advice to Camp Crawford organizers, if I may? Hide any strong rope and/or Jews.

I don’t usually respond to every blogpost on the left that spews out a bunch of nonsense about me. If I did that, I’d never get to post much of anything else on this site and you wonderful people would be denied my wit, wisdom, and sleep-inducing prose.

That said, this guy’s post about me was too good to pass up. It started on Saturday when I left a drive-by comment about this ignorant peaen to Cindy Sheehan:

Cindy Sheehan is passionate, but her commonality is what truly frightens those that oppose and attack her. Career activists and academic dissenters have, like it or not, become extremely easy to marginalize, their language too remote. But Sheehan’s language is not. Her language makes her a threat because of its commonality. Millions of mothers across the United States identify with Sheehan, and millions besides support her single demand, the simplicity of which is stunningly powerful.

Cindy Sheehan wants to meet with the President and ask him some very basic questions, the sorts of questions that the majority of Americans can understand. Bush’s advisors know how dangerous this situation is, and not just for the current administration, but for the Republican candidate in 2008. That would be why they have chosen to use the media to defame Sheehan. For were the answers to Sheehan’s questions strong enough to stand on their own merit, President Bush would have met with Sheehan days ago. That, in itself, should say something to those watching this drama unfold.

Cindy Sheehan’s “commonality” of course, includes some of the most nauseating anti-semitism this side of the Third Reich. And anyone who thinks that this conspiracy mongering fantasist is anything except a disturbed, suffering woman being used by her fellow conspiracy mongering fantasists on the far left to advance a true anti-American agenda better think again. And the meme that “Cindy Sheehan wants to meet with the President and ask him some very basic questions” is believed only by 5 year old children who eagerly await the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas and the Easter Bunny on Easter Sunday. What Cindy Sheehan wants is the “Chief Brody Slap” picture – a moment that she devoutly wishes to have replayed over and over like the Howard Dean scream that doomed that worthy’s candidacy after Iowa.

No-one is “afraid” of Cindy Sheehan except the far left who harbor the fear that when the press packs up and goes home, the media circus will end and they’ll have to scout out their next “Rosa Parks” to try and jump start a movement that simply is not resonating with the American people – a movement to cut and run in Iraq and allow the enemies of the United States to claim victory on the field of battle.

They are not interested in Sheehan. They are not interested in Bush, except as he represents what they hate most – the United States. Their goal is not to save the Iraqi people but to humiliate the country. They have made that quite clear, believing that a full fledged humiliation in Iraq will assist them in their ultimate goal of electing far left candidates to office.

“Bush Advisers” don’t need to shame Sheehan. She has done that all by herself. Every time she opens her mouth (and this despite a slew of PR flaks and media consultants) she says something else so outrageous that even what’s left of the sane left has abandoned her.

For God’s sake, stop trying to make this anti-semitic conspiracist into an anti-war icon. Just let her be. Just let her be…

UPDATE

Received this email from the moonbat who was upset with my comment on Mrs. Sheehan that I left on his blog.

He has now taken down the post I linked above because “I don’t want you getting traffic.” Why he linked to me in the first place remains a mystery. I guess at that time he did want to send me traffic…or he didn’t…until did. I think.

He also explained why he had to delete my comment:

Any comment that espouses violence, hatred, racism, sexism, and/or
generally abusive language is subject to removal. Any comment that
aims to silence other points of view through intimidation, ad hominem
attacks, and/or other methods is subject to removal.”

I guess when decrying anti-semitism, you’re practicing hate. Against whom again remains a mystery. Perhaps other anti-semites may get upset in which case, judging by the agreement with Mrs. Sheehan’s well known comments about Israel and the Jews and the conspiracy theories that involve the “neocons” and Jews that appeared in the comments on his website, maybe he should think about shutting himself down.

Also, I guess ad hominem attacks against conservatives are perfectly alright. And hate. But I guess this is what passes for political discourse on the left these days.

My point in posting it was to
illustrate the sort of baseless, unintelligent rhetoric spewed by
those that conduct themselves as if 40 years younger than they are.
Your views don’t even rate mention, your conduct has stripped you of
even that.

First, what my age has to do with anything is beyond me. Perhaps he’s likening me to all those “children” he and Mrs. Sheehan are talking about who are serving in Iraq. You know…the ones who volunteered to serve in the military, many of whom are in their 20’s and 30’s. This is an outgrowth of the left’s desire to take care of all of us as if we were infants. Maybe I should start referring to this fella as my nanny.

Secondly, if my views don’t even rate mention, why mention them? Just wondering.

Finally, this:

Please do not contact me again or visit my website. Thank you.

Well…that’s the ultimate dagger. I guess I’m going to have to scratch him off the list of sites that I’d never visit in a million years. I found it originally through a Technorati search of Cindy Sheehan. I was looking for people like this guy who believe that “Mother Sheehan” is some kind of catalyst for the anti-war movement.

As I made clear in this post, it’s a fantasy to believe such nonsense. And to elevate someone whose diatribes drip with anti-semitic venom and anti-American bilge to the level of saint says more about the left than anything my poor abilities could possibly relate.

Watching Anderson Cooper interview Cindy Sheehan last night brought back fond memories of my childhood. I must have been about 6 years old and my father was taking part in the ageless ritual of teaching his son the finer points of baseball.

It must have looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Young, tow-headed boy trying to swing a bat that was bigger than he was. The father, standing a few feet away and tossing the ball underhand trying very hard to make hitting the ball very easy, aiming the ball carefully so that it would hit the boy’s bat when he swung.

That pretty much describes Cooper’s cheerleading for Cindy Sheehan last night. The entire hour-long show was devoted to Mrs. Sheehan and her quixotic and dishonest quest to “just ask the President a few questions.” And during that entire hour, not one word about her anti-semitic rants was uttered. The pro-Palestinian Crawford Peace House was described as “a liberal meeting place.” Not a word about her statements that we shouldn’t have invaded Afghanistan. No questions about her recent contention that we’ve “contaminated” Iraq with nuclear radiation. Not a peep about her kooky conspiracy theories about 9/11.

She was a simple mother who just wanted to ask the President a few questions. And despite a promise on Anderson’s part to determine whether Sheehan lied to him during an interview on Monday about authorship of a letter she wrote to ABC last March in which she accused the President of going to war in Iraq as part of an Israeli-Neocon conspiracy, Cooper failed to deliver. On Tuesday, this is what Cooper had to say about the letter:

So we contacted ABC News today about it. They said they had received a letter on behalf of Cindy back in March. They said took it seriously enough that they responded to it, but so far they cannot find the actual e-mail, they say. They say they’re trying to find it, they’re investigating.

Bottom line, ABC News right now does not seem to be confirming this is what Cindy Sheehan wrote to them, so stay tuned. We’ll continue to follow.

Yesterday, ABC apparently demanded a correction by Cooper:

ABC News also said they spoke to CNN to see if they are going to run a correction about the statement Anderson Cooper made that “ABC News does not seem to be confirming this is what Cindy Sheehan wrote to them.” In fairness to CNN, that conclusion seemed reasonable yesterday. Today, the most likely conclusion is that Cindy Sheehan is making up totally implausible excuses for lying on TV.

And this proves that if you’re going to lie, make sure there’s no evidence on the internet:

Let’s give Mother Sheehan the benefit of the doubt and presume she’s been driven mad by the Texas heat on top of her grief. Because the letter was posted on usenet on March 18, 2005. At that time nobody, including Tony Tersh who posted it, had ever heard of Cindy Sheehan… Notice that Tony sent her a copy of the letter he posted — for her approval. There is no record of Cindy complaining about it having been edited. In fact, she and Tony have continued their correspondence ever since. In fact, Cindy sent Tony numerous e-mails about her public appearances and asked him to promote her website

Did Cooper ask one single question about the letter after saying that his show as going to get to the botton of it?.

Here’s the closest Cooper got to being confrontational:

COOPER: Do you consider yourself a radical? I mean, some have been calling you a radical. And clearly, some of the essays you’ve written—I mean, you’ve called President Bush a terrorist, the worst terrorist in the world. You’ve called the war in Iraq blatant genocide. That’s pretty radical.

SHEEHAN: I think I am pretty radical, but only on this issue. You know, this is my issue. I just want the killing to stop. I don’t want any other mother to go through what I’m going through, Anderson, whether she be Iraqi or American.

In the immortal words of Defense Secretary Alfred Nimziki from Independence Day, “That’s not entirely accurate.”

In fact, Mrs. Sheehan is radical about a whole host of issues. Here are some choice words she delivered at San Francisco State University in support of terrorist enabler, attorney Lynne Stewart:

America has been killing people . . . since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son and my son enlisted. I’m going all over the country telling moms: “This country is not worth dying for.

But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. The people are good, the system is morally repugnant. . . . What they’re saying, too, is like, it’s okay for Israel to have nuclear weapons. But Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons. It’s okay for the United States to have nuclear weapons. It’s okay for the countries that we say it’s okay for. We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now. It’s okay for them to have them, but Iran or Syria can’t have them. It’s okay for Israel to occupy Palestine, but it’s—yeah—and it’s okay for Iraq to occupy—I mean, for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it’s not okay for Syria to be in Lebanon….

Don’t reporters like, you know, do research before they interview a subject anymore?

The rest of the interview was equally nauseating. Cooper would toss a softball, Sheehan would hit it out of the park. This exchange was typical:

COOPER: You know, Senator Joe Biden, who has been critical of President Bush for quite some time, he doesn’t say we should pull-out. He says, in fact, it would be a mistake to pull-out. John Kerry says that it would be a mistake, as well.

COOPER: Cindy Sheehan, I appreciate you joining us tonight.

The rest of the hour was full of mostly flattering, some downright gushy stories about Camp Casey and how this one, lone woman only wants a few questions answered.

Bulls**t!.

Anyone who thinks that hasn’t been paying attention to what Mrs. Sheehan is really after; a “Chief Brody Slap” moment:

THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP is based on the infamous scene in Jaws when a distraught mom slaps Roy Scheider across the face. Her son was eaten by a shark, but she blames the sheriff. Because he didn’t do enough. It’s not the shark, it’s the sheriff. It’s like me blaming Arianna for Christine Lahti’s post. But unjustified. And with a shark.

THE CHIEF BRODY SLAP (CBS) is a chief staple in an any liberal diet: a fiery mix of outrage, self-rightious indignation and condemnation delivered from a moral highground so lofty it gives you a nosebleed. The Brody Slap is predicated on the idea that you don’t need a solution, only blame. Who needs a real alternative when you’re already outraged? It’s easy!

There was also the obligatory “Iraq is actually Viet Nam in disguise” story with CNN’s ace political reporter Bruce Morton drawing the necessary analogies to the 1970’s,

To be fair (even though I don’t want to be) there was a smattering of reaction from parents who lost a loved one in Iraq and supported both the President and the mission. But they were overshadowed by the moonbats.

Sheehan’s PR handlers are doing a good job. They’re keeping her on message and keeping the press from concentrating on her anti-semitic rants.

Whatever Ben Cohen of Truthout is paying them, they’re earning every penny.

Forget about Cindy Sheehan…for a moment anyway. Let’s talk about the Joooos.

You know, the Jooooos. They’re the people who ordered George Bush to invade Iraq. The people who are oppressing those poor, benighted women and children in Palestine. And if you can’t find Palestine on a map, don’t fret. It’s located in the very same place that some country called “Israel” currently occupies. Not to worry because that’s just a typo. The map makers of the world are simply waiting for the heroic Palestinian people to throw off the yoke of oppression encircling their waists like the bomb belts worn by their children. It’s simply a matter of time. There are apparently an endless number of Palestinian children willing to blow themselves to smithereens – and take as many of those evil, occupying Joooos with them as possible. And since there are a helluva lot more Palestinian Arabs than there are Joooos, logic dictates that eventually, the devout wish of those peace loving, misunderstood, day-care-starting-hospital-administering-food-bank-donaters from Hamas will be realized; i.e. the Jooos will cease to exist.

Why, to hear some people talk, it’s a matter of justice, a question of hoooomun rights. The freedom fighters who wear the, er uniform of Hamas aren’t really that violent. Did you know that a grenade launcher has a dual use utility? That’s right. It also makes a great martini shaker.

I bring all this up because the mainstream press refuses to bring the embarrassing truth about Cindy Sheehan and the company she keeps to the attention of the droolers, the half-wits, and Ritalin guzzlers who make up her starry eyed and swooning Greek chorus here in the Shadow Media. I’m talking about Kos, the DU, and the Huff ‘n Puffers who think the nauseating anti-semite camped out in front of the President’s ranch in Crawford is either the second coming of Rosa Parks, or the catalyst to morph the current anti-war movement into a resurrected manifestation of some 1960’s flower-child protest party.

This is why the left is so anxious to bring back those heady days of Viet Nam; they miss the guilt-free, consequenceless sex that made being a hippie so rewarding. In the age of AIDS and other epidemic sexually transmitted diseases, who doesn’t long for those sexually charged times when men were men and women were…well, easy. One would hope that the greying group of long haired, sandal wearing, Viagra swilling ancients would have taken a bath at least once since 1968. Otherwise, the new age youngsters who’ve joined them in the trenches may be a little put off by the aroma.

I did a post a few days ago asking that when opposing Mrs. Sheehan, we understand that she is so stricken with grief that it has warped her judgement. But really, there’s no excuse for this:

“9/11 was Pearl Harbor for the neo-conservatives’ agenda” and declared the U.S. government a “morally repugnant system.” Then she raged:

“We have no Constitution. We’re the only country with no checks and balances. We want our country back if we have to impeach George Bush down to the person who picks up the dog sh-t in Washington! Let George Bush send his two little party animals to die in Iraq. It’s OK for Israel to have nuclear weapons but we are waging nuclear war in Iraq, we have contaminated the entire country. It’s not OK for Syria to be in Lebanon. Hypocrites! But Israel can occupy Palestine? Stop the slaughter!”

This is a mild outburst. And for those who say advocating the Palestinian cause is not anti-semitic, I will accuse you also of being a hater of the Jews. You cannot exist on this planet and not know that the “Palestinian cause” is annihilation of not just the Jewish state but all Jews everywhere. By making common cause with the genocidal thugs of Hamas, you reveal yourself to be as bad as any run-of-the-mill goober chewing, goose-stepping neo-Nazi skin head thug in this country. No difference.

Which brings us back to Mrs. Sheehan and her friends. For the media to glorify this paranoid is beyond belief. She thinks America would be a fascist state if not for the internet:

“This is something that can’t be ignored,” Sheehan said during a conference call with bloggers representing sites like democrats.com, codepink4peace.org, and crooksandliars.com. “They can’t ignore us, and they can’t put us down. Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn’t know anything, and we would already be a fascist state.”

And again, here’s that mythical place called “Palestine:”

“You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” Sheehan declares.

Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says defiantly: “My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don’t owe you a penny…you give my son back and I’ll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we’ll put this war on trial.”

“And now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word – impeachment – because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.”

And Powerline links to some interesting information on her “host” in Crawford; the Crawford House:

Cindy Sheehan has tied her cart to, the Crawford Peace House [Note: The CPH people have deleted the material mentioned in this post from their page, but I have the original. Here is the Google cache. See the update at the bottom of this post.]. They claim to be a house of peace, and Cindy Sheehan’s agenda would seem to be centered on the War in Iraq, but even a cursory look at the CPH’s web page shows a clearly different agenda. As I write this, the word “Iraq” appears on CPH’s front page a total of ONE time. The number of times a certain eastern Mediterranean country’s name appears? Seventeen times. And the single essay on the page is about…Iraq? No. It is about the world’s true demon, root of all evil, Israel.

The probable reason Crawford House took down their Jew-baiting material was the intervention of one of the slickest PR firms around – Fenton Communications – who recently came on board as a hireling of Ben Cohen’s group Truemajority. Mr. Cohen is the moonbat who helped start Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream and who famously used to give a part of his profit to “world peace” including donations to the National Council of Churches which acted as a front organization (unwittingly) for KGB donations in the United States in the 1980’s.

Fenton has their work cut out for them. The ragamuffins attending to the Queen of Grief need to be “handled” so that their anti-semitic rhetoric doesn’t get out of hand. And the fact is, since Fenton came on board, Mrs. Sheehan’s rhetoric has moderated to the point that she just seems a little kooky rather than a frothing at the mouth Jew hater.

Hindrocket at Powerline wonders if she’s “a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American like the extremists with whom she associates?”

I’m really not sure. But I know in order for her to avoid self-destruction, she’s going to have to be managed by her handlers like a candidate in a political campaign.

Which, of course, is exactly what her little one act play is all about – politics. Her “crusade” has gone beyond grief, beyond anger and has entered the high-tech digitial world of a media campaign. The danger is that word will get out about this, that the MSM will actually start reporting the spin just like they do for a political campaign. Once that happens, her little charade will lose it’s drama value for the nets and Cindy Sheehan will be left with 15-30 second sound bites to spout her hatred.

The closer one looks at Mrs. Sheehan the less attractive she becomes. This is why the big lefty blogs are steering clear of her. They sympathize with her goals but recognize a charlatan when they see one. But as long as Kos and his minions are on board, she won’t lack for internet coverage.

That is, unless she really starts saying what she thinks about the Joooos and how their evil influence is the cause of all the problems in the world.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin links to a fascinating article in Newsweek that tells the story of some of the President’s visits with families of the fallen. I’ve written about the same thing here where Bush visited with familes before going on TV to make his nationwide address on Iraq.

Lori at Polipundit rightly questions some of the editorializing in the article but I think the slant is overwhelmed by the simply humanity of the President revealed in the article.

Read the whole thing.

Q & O picks up on the anti-semitism angle:

Cindy Sheehan has gone from a grieving mother most could feel sympathy for to the ringmaster at a tawdry circus. Of course the anti-war crowd and the MSM love it, not that anyone’s particularly surprised by that.

The one thing the MSM is sensitive about is anti-semitism – at least the kind of nauseating overt variety practiced by Mrs. Sheehan and her enablers at Crawford House. If they start to play that aspect of her “vigil” up, the tide may turn against the sympathy maven.