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Jewish World Review Sept. 6, 2005 / 2 Ellul,
5765
Bill O'Reilly
Going to extremes
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Hurricane Katrina wiped out "Camp Casey," and that could be a
good or a bad thing depending on your point of view. The storm diverted
attention from Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protest in Crawford, Texas, and
caused President Bush to ditch his vacation and high-tail it back to
Washington where, reports say, Ms. Sheehan will follow.
Like the Terri Schiavo controversy a few months ago, the Cindy
Sheehan saga contains some peril for ideologues even though they might not
know it. Smart conservatives realized that fanatical rantings about the
health of Ms. Schiavo and criticism of a Florida judge who appeared to be
upholding the law were risky. When the autopsy was finally made public and
proved Terri Schiavo had no chance to recover, the image of conservatives
did, indeed, sustain some damage.
Now the same scenario is playing out on the Left in the Cindy
Sheehan circus. Perceptive liberals know the woman is an extremist who is
being used by the radical left to bludgeon the Bush administration. Ms.
Sheehan may be sympathetic on the surface, but underneath she is a committed
far-left individual who believes the USA is a force for evil in the world.
Let's look at Cindy Sheehan's resume.
On April 4, 2004, her son Army SPC Casey Sheehan was killed in
Iraq during a fierce firefight. He was awarded the Bronze Star posthumously.
On June 17, 2004, Ms. Sheehan and her husband Patrick met with
President Bush. A week later she speaks kindly about the president with a
reporter from a Vacaville, Calif., newspaper.
On July 12, 2004, Cindy Sheehan begins working with the
anti-Iraq war group "Families Speak Out."
On Sept. 9, 2004, she is quoted by The San Francisco Chronicle
as saying: "Our only goal is to have people understand the human cost of
war."
Three weeks later, however, Cindy Sheehan takes a sharp left
turn and begins to attack President Bush personally. On Oct. 3, she is
quoted in The Washington Post as saying: "(My son) died for someone who
wouldn't even fight for his country."
Sheehan then begins to lend her voice to ads financed by the far
left "MoveOn" organization, and her protest becomes more strident. She
begins showing up at Bush events calling the president a variety of nasty
names.
As 2005 begins, Cindy Sheehan introduces a new organization
called "Gold Star Families for Peace." She begins to question why Barbara
and Jenna Bush are not in Iraq and is quoted on the far-left website
AlterNet as saying that American children are being killed or maimed for "a
series of lies, mistakes and miscalculations."
On March 22, 2005, Ms. Sheehan ups the ante further and is
quoted on another radical left website, Truthout.org, as saying: "Casey was
sent to Iraq to be killed by the same pack of cowards and murderers who so
valiantly and tirelessly fought for the right for Ms. Schiavo to live!"
On April 27, 2005, Ms. Sheehan appears at a rally to support
convicted terrorist supporter Lynn Stewart and says that because the USA has
nuclear weapons, it has no right to tell Iran it can't have them. Cindy
Sheehan also goes on to say that Israel is "occupying" Palestine.
By now a full-blown radical, Cindy Sheehan is incorporated into
the far left media machine and begins tuning up for her Crawford, Texas
demonstration by telling various TV interviewers that the U.S. military is
in Iraq "killing innocent people."
In early August, Sheehan begins informing the press that
insurgents in Iraq are actually "freedom fighters." And that the murderous
terrorist acts are justified because of the "occupation" by the USA. Her
protest outside the president's ranch draws huge media notice, but few
report on her increasingly radical ideology.
By the end of August, three newspapers, The New York Times, The
San Francisco Chronicle and The Baltimore Sun had printed that I called Ms.
Sheehan's actions "treasonous." All three papers agreed to retract that
false assertion, but clearly Ms. Sheehan and her allies were angry with me
for my exposition of them.
My hunch is that Cindy Sheehan has peaked. However, liberals
would be wise to understand that any future partnering up with Ms. Sheehan
and her committed radical pals will not advance their cause in mainstream
America, which has rejected extremism for 230 years. Cindy Sheehan is now
actually a danger to the moderate left in this country. Somebody tell them.
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