This one is going to give the left the vapors:
When are the bureau chiefs of our newspapers and networks going to snap out of their own vacation-induced trances and send some grown-up correspondents down to Crawford, Texas? For weeks now, Cindy Sheehan has not been asked a single question that is any tougher than “How does it feel?” The media have been acting as her megaphone. After Slate published her real opinions on politics (a weird confection of pacifism with paranoid anti-Zionism) last Monday, she was eventually asked about her statement that her son Casey had been killed in a war for Israel, and she denied ever having made it. So, we must now say that, as well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist…
What do these people imagine that they are demanding? Would they like a referendum to be held, among the relatives of the fallen in Iraq, to determine the future conduct of the war? I think I can promise them that they would heavily lose such a vote. But what if the right wing were also to demand such a vote and the “absolute moral authority” that supposedly goes with it?
One of three things could then happen. The ultra-right anti-Zionist forces of David Duke and Patrick J. Buchanan, both of whom approvingly speak of Ms. Sheehan’s popular groundswell, would still lose the vote. So would the media fools who semi-automatically identify Sheehan and her LaRouche-like drivel with the “left” or “progressive” forces. This would leave us with a random pseudo-majority, made up of veterans and their relatives. Who wants this to be the group that decides? One might as well live in a populist, jingoist banana republic. Never mind the Constitution, or even the War Powers Act. Only victims and martyrs can decide! Get ready to gather under the balcony of a leader who speaks rotundly of such glory…
Smear merchant! How dare he question Cindy, or, worse yet, how dare he question her supporters or their policy positions? Where is George Galloway when you need him?
*** Update ***
Sheehan was the subject of a Rasmussen poll.
Kimmitt
People still read Hitchens?
Steve
Not giving me the vapors, sorry. They can flame all they want.
Tree
Like MS. Sheenan says:
What is the Noble Cause that over 1860 american soldiers died for and over 15,000 more ended up maimed and crippled for life.
If you can answer this question honestly than why can’t Der Fuhrer Bush tell the same face to face with Mrs. Sheenan.
KC
I tried to find that comment about Isreal a few weeks ago. I found some pretty suspicious looking email link but that’s it. The best I got was that she disagreed with the Afghan war, maintaining that we should have attacked al Queda instead. I disagree with her on that, so do a lot of people, but hey, she’s got a right to believe it. Anyone else find anything substantial on that Isreal comment?
John Cole
Umm. KC- you could try reading the link in the Hitchens piece that addresses the very question you just asked.
SoCalJustice
I really enjoyed watching Justin Raimondo lash out hysterically at Hitchens the last time he made the point that the knuckledragging, mouth breathing Jew haters fully support Cindy “My son died for Israel and the PNAC/Neocon agenda” Sheehan.
Raimondo found some devil worshipper who made a pro-Iraq war statement to attempt to illustrate some strange guilt-by-association retort. Unfortunately for Justin, Cindy Sheehen is hardly the only issue or cause pon which himself and white supremacist fascists agree.
KC, it’s also “Israel.”
Mike S
Hitchens is like the uncle that you have to put in the corner with a minder at your family reunion. If he gets too close to the bar he’ll start screaming about something incoherently.
SoCalJustice
…cause upon which…
kate
One soldiers thoughts on right wing pundits of the war:
from Steve Gilliard’s blog
Someone far, far better qualified than me responded to the Virgin Ben and his apologia for being a chickenhawk on Democratic Underground.
……………………
Mr. Shapiro,
I just finished reading your recent article concerning “chickenhawks.” I’m an Iraq War Veteran and a West Point Graduate. I left the Army with the rank of Captain, spent a year of ground combat in the Sunni Triangle, and was awarded the Bronze Star…
[Post edited- Kate- Just post the link. – John]
M. Scott Eiland
Probably academic now–with the Rasmussen poll showing her approval rating at 35% for, 38% against, my guess is that the lefty PR flack she hired will advise her to stay with her mother, allowing the left to try to rebuild her myth over time to make her look like more of a victim and regain some of the credibility she lost by, well, opening her mouth and allowing words to come out.
Joe Albanese
Wow… Hitch is hitting the bottle pretty hard these days it seems. The level of anger and vitriol is pretty amazing considering the fact that his “side” controls the White House, the Congress, most of Supreme Court, most of the judiciary, most of the governerships, most of the state legislatures, 90% of talk radio, cable news. And he is violently angry because one mother of a dead son is asking some questions? Is your position is so weak that one single mom is so threatening to you?
But we all know why Hitch is so angry, other than the Jack Daniels of course, its because he knows what a huge blunder Iraq is turning out to be. He knows, down deep, that the position he so ardently advocated is going to go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes in foreign affairs in recent memory – much more damaging to US interests than Viet Nam. His “side” was wrong. Monumentally wrong about everything. Every single thing these incompetents spewed about Iraq turned out to be wrong, dead wrong. And it doesn’t end. Cheney with the “last throes” of the insurgency. Condi’s “losing steam” comment. Bush’s ever present “good progress” pronouncements are a joke and everyone knows it. And Hitch you are the biggest joke of all. You are making yourself a complete fool, an angry drunken fool. Have another drink Hitch and maybe you’ll wake up and find all is well in Iraq and that you were right all along.
Pb
Uh-oh, don’t send Hitch!
(If–like Hitch–you don’t know the answer already, ask a grown-up. Or, look to Tree’s comment… “What is the Noble Cause”, etc. They want Answers. It’s just amazing how Hitch can quote other people’s smears and dirt on Cindy, but he can’t bring himself to quote what she herself *has* publicly said about her cause. It’s almost like he has an agenda or something. But I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and just assume that he isn’t a grown-up yet.)
Mike S
If only we could get the idiot with a 45/51 rating to do the same.
capriccio
Yet another notch in Hitchens’s belt:
Lady Di.
Mother Theresa
Cindy Sheehan
What a fuckin’ tough guy.
Andrew J. Lazarus
John forgot to quote where Hitch refers to “hysterical noncombatants”. Pot, meet kettle.
Hitch and friends no longer bother with success criteria. All they allow is one failure criterion: US withdrawal. And constant Fuehrer-in-the-bunker exhortations to keep our will up. I need a drink.
John Cole
You know, if there is one thing that never gets old, it is the implication that my editing was meant to intentionally leave something out and pretend it didn’t exist.
OF course the link to the full story and the … should be the first clue otherwise…
Doug
I was asking similar questions during the run up to the war; only it was GeeDubya rather than Ms. Sheehan who was getting the softball questions. “Mr. President, as the nation is at odds over war, with many organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus pushing for continued diplomacy through the U.N., how is your faith guiding you?”
March 6, 2003 press conference.
Pan Pan (anon...)
I think the reason that so many in both the left and the center support her is that she is calling for the President of the Bush to be more candid and forthcoming about his foreign policy, and to treat the American people to an actual content laden discussion of what was needed, what went wrong, and what can be done to fix it. I don’t think most Americans see ‘stay the course’ as sufficient in and of itself, even if they do feel like there is something to be gained by staying in Iraq.
Sheehan may have some strange views (I think most Americans have some strange and unique views), but I don’t think any of these views hurt the validity of her main message, which seems to resonate with the fact that a very large group of Americans, including many who heretofor were proud Republicans, see President Bush as a dutiful and straightforward leader.
james richardson
Doug says what I was going to say, that we’ve seen the media go soft of the righties in power for so long, it’s rather amusing to see someone get pissy b/c they’re going soft on Ms. Sheenan as well.
Pan Pan (anon...)
umm… that should read ‘do not see President Bush as a dutiful and straightforward leader’.
MisterPundit
Interesting. Turns out that Mother Sheehan is not exactly generating the font of sympathy the left had hoped for, despite the media love fest. What’s next for Cindy? Will she flog herself in public?
ppGaz
Does this guy imagine that he is a legitimate commentator on this subject, any more than this blog is a container for any legitimate treatment of this subject?
Citizens by the side of the road, carrying signs, are not in a position to “demand” anything. They are officially powerless, and therefore have resorted to theater.
It’s all theater. George Bush is apparently disconnected from the reality of Iraq; the falling support numbers are mainly about this. Sheehan is simply putting on some theater so as to draw attention to that fact.
It’s as simple as that. Hitchens is not going to have any serious conversation about the meta-subject, any more than this blog is. This blog barks about Hitchens. Hitchens barks about the press.
If this stuff were any more self referential, it would implode and suck the entire solar system into its gravitatonal field.
Bruce From Missouri
Does anyone but the Freepers and other wingnuts give a flying crap about what Hitchens says anymore?
The man’s a self parody. Anyone who takes him seriously cannot be taken seriously themselves.
In other words, no, he’s not going to give the left the vapors…Though he obviously seems to give you righties a big woody.
Bruce
ppGaz
Really? When was this announced? Is this retroactive to 2002? Does the “mission accomplished”, “bring it on”, “last throes” brigade have to abide by the new rule?
What a bunch of fucking crap.
eileen from OH
Why would I have the vapors over a guy who has now devoted two columns to a story, which, if it was as inconsequential and unworthy of coverage as he says, wouldn’t have merited but a few sentences. Just who IS his audience here? Just WHO is he trying to convince?
He thinks that the mother of a dead soldier is worthy of not one, but two rants about stoopid media coverage, but 24/7 coverage of a lost blonde in Aruba isn’t worthy of one?
He’s missing the point, as most on the right is (are?) Criticizing and dissecting the utterances of Cindy Shaheen isn’t going to work. It all gets boiled down and synthesized and scrunched into one sentence “Mother of Dead Soldier Attacked.” (With the now added “Cindy’s Mother Has Stroke.” ) If the American public couldn’t handle the “nuance” of John Kerry then I seriously doubt they’re going to be analyzing Cindy Shaheen’s foreign policy papers.
Most people know she isn’t a politician. Most of them aren’t either. But she IS a mother and a lot of them are too. Every single mother who has worried about a child can relate to her. Every single parent who has ever imagined the nightmare of losing a child can relate to her. And every single one of them can feel the calculated cruelty of Hitchens’ attack. Because, in a subtle, but very real way, it’s also an attack on each of them and what they’d say or do if they ever lost a child – and dared to ask why.
Cindy made the Iraqi war very personal for a lot of people. And it’s gonna take a helluva lot more than the smarmy Mr. Hitchens to make people turn on her.
eileen from OH
airmail
The problem I see with Hitchens is that he hates bullies. So much so that he has a tendency to overlook a bully that happens to topple the particular bully that he has had in his sights. Hitchens, since that Iraq war proved to be much harder than organizing a rose parade, seems to be truly ambivalent of Bush as a leader. He seems to defend Bush’s policy while not doing much to defend him personally. In an interview with Tim Russert, he referred to Bush’s handling of the post-war aftermath as “near impeachable.” In other words, it seems his venom is directed at those who question the policy, not the implementer there of. And as an aside, the jibes about his alcoholism are just shrill. Just as shrill when they are employed against Ted Kennedy. A lot of people are/were drunks: Churchill, Ulysses Grant, Bukowski, Hemmingway, Faulkner, Otis of Mayberry fame, and Ben Franklin and rum were no strangers. I guess going after their drinking habits is more convenient than going after the substance of their arguments. That being said, Hitchens must have been in a stupor;) these past years to just now realize that the “press corp.” is just another softball team when it comes to asking hard and pertinent questions of the Bush Administration.
DougJ
Well, Mr. Hitchens can be quite a hoot but let’s not forget the partisan hack job he did on Saint Theresa. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Let’s not snuggle up to much to these alcoholic Trostskyite. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.
eileen from OH
I knew about Churchill, and Grant and Hemingway, but NOT OTIS!!!
(Sorry, it just tickled me to see him lumped in there.)
eileen from OH (easily amused)
ppGaz
C’mon, eileen. Otis was real. Them other fellers are fictional.
DougJ
With Sheehan’s approval so low, I don’t see how she can expect to be re-elected to the House of Representatives. Time to find a new job, I guess.
eileen from OH
I think he wrote the first article and thought “in for a penny in for a pound” and wrote the second because if you lead a Hitchens to water you can’t make him drink (unless it has scotch in it as well.) And he knows that the pen is mightier than the sword, unless you’re an early bird and get to the worm before the chickens come home to roost – which is actually quite messy if you’re living in a one bedroom condo. But, it IS a small world, after all and still better than a tempest in a goddam teapot like the Valerie Plame thing.
eileen from OH
And I heard that her husband, Martin, isn’t going to play President Bartlett anymore and her other son, Charlie, is quitting his sit-com, “Two And A Half Men.”
(Is it like my birthday or something?)
Mark-NC
I guess I see this in simpler terms than most.
Cindy has EVERY right to do her protest thing – actually, more rights than most since her son died in the “war”.
Bush, or any other president, would be a fool to rush out to meet her just because she is camped out on the roadside. No president could ever do his job if he was pre-occupied by the latest person or group to show up wihout an appointment. There would be/is an endlless list.
I’m no Bush fan, but I think he has done everything he should do in this matter already. For Cindy, it would be a success if her point of view gets noticed above most other average citizens – and it has.
DougJ
The thing is that I don’t see how this helps Sheehan politically. Maybe her constituency in Rhode Island doesn’t approve of president Bush, but they are bound to see what she is doing as grand-standing. When I see her approval ratings that low, I see this backfiring. Maybe she thinks this will give her increased visibility if she runs against Chafee, but I just don’t see how it helps her long term.
Joe Albanese
airmail said
that was the point airmail. I didn’t see why I should go after Hitch’s “arguments” when they consist of this:
and this:
and this:
and:
Please, these aren’t “arguments” but the vile rantings of a drunken sod and I would not dignify them with anything other than comments in kind.
You know what gets me is that the right, through their Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys and Michale Savages can, and have, said every depicable thing in the book about their “opponents” but God forbid the left responds in kind. Sorry, guys but you started us down this path don’t be so sensitive.
Minitaur of California
With the exception of those graying now into their 80’s, we Americans have not known war, a true war of surival. We have lived in relative luxury, undaunted by poverty, political strife, and the general human tragedies that so tangle the rest of the globe. Accordingly, it is no surprise that the shock of a real threat to our security causes so many Americans to shirk in horror that a moment of sacrifice is at hand. We must now learn the fateful truth of human existence: Evil and violence will eventually come knocking at your door. The butchers bill must be paid, often by the heroic young who are willing to wield the sword for the survival of their clan, their nation. There is no running from Islamic facism. These evil religious zealots will surely work for our total and complete destruction. The Quoran is an agressive document. A black letter read of the Quoran should cause any person of reflection to shudder. You don’t have to be a cross-eyed lunatic to see that the plain language of the Quoran dictates a horrible fate for those of thus who carry the mantle of the “infidel.”
If we are to surive as a civilization, we must be willing to accept that some of our friends, loved ones and neighbors are going to die early deaths. They will either pass into the afterlife while carrying the rifle for their land, or die among the innocents killed so horribly by Islamic terrorists like our brothers and sisters on 9/11.
Rise America. Rise and accept the responsibility of your generation. Yours is the responsibility to protect your children, your culture, your way of life, and the very existence of Western Democracy. The Islamic radicals must be exterminated. They must be driven from the face of the earth and granted their ultimate wish of meeting their angry God on an expedited basis.
airmail
This might be true, if in fact, she were running in Rhode Island. But since she is running in Gloatingberry against
I.M. Blustering, I don’t think it will be a problem.
airmail
I couldn’t agree more. My problem isn’t with responding in general, but rather tactics in specifics. “Drunken sod” to me is no better than “red diaper doper babies” or “turd-world nations.” When Bush was prattling on in the first debate about how we are in Iraq because of 9/11, Kerry reminded him that it Bin Laden, not Sadam, that caused 9/11 and Bush reacted so balked that he knew who attack us. That reaction was priceless because what Kerry said cut right through the bullshit and tripe he was spinning. I doubt Bush would have reacted that way if Kerry had reminded Bush that he was an ex-drunk, head of the failure that that Harkin Energy was, and traded Sammy Sosa. Iraq and Sosa are apples and oranges. It is nit-picking.
Beej
“Sorry, guys but you started us down this path don’t be so sensitive.”
Oh boy, yet another “argument” that if the other side does it, then it’s ok for us to do it too. Wow! Such erudition, such nuanced analysis, such crackling debate!
I stant in awe!
(Please note: All of the above is sarcase except, unfortunately, the quote)
Jeff Altemus
So John, you’re now comparing Cindy Sheehan to George Galloway?
I went with you as far as saying you can criticize her positions (I agree). I never felt you were attacking her personally and recognize that you went out of your way to scold others not to.
And now this? It’s just as sloppy and disingenuous as the right wing hacks who’ve never seen an honorable person they could resist smearing.
Sheesh.
Beej
Oops, that’s sarcasm. Sorry
Jeff Altemus
And another thing.
Let’s say a mother loses her son in battle. She gets interviewed and says something to the effect that “I have to believe we’re doing the right thing over there. I can’t believe he died for no good reason.” Maybe in this hypothetical she goes on a national crusade to build up or shore up support for the war—or at least to make her views known.
Well, if I disagree and think the war is a sham, I might think that she’s deluding herself. I might think that she’s sad or pathetic, looking to salve her soul with whatever mythmaking she can piece together. Let’s the president visited her and invited her to sit with the wife at a State of Union speech, I might imagine she’s being used for political advantage. And I’d probably share those opinions with my friends.…
But she’s a grieving mother so I would not attack her. I wouldn’t rub in her face the idea that her son died in vain (if that’s what I believed). I wouldn’t publicly try to shame her or engage in ad hominem attacks or smear her with her associations.
I wouldn’t do those things not because I’m a great guy, but because they’re flat out rude. And cruel. And because some things are more important than political points.
Of course, politics is hardball. Ideas I agree with wholeheartedly and men I appreciate will get hit with vile and loathsome shit and, fair’s fair, they can hit back. Blah, blah, blah. And, yes, Sheehan has injected herself into the public sphere and exposed herself to criticism.
But common decency would suggest treating her with kid gloves. Not because she’s right or has “absolute moral authority.” But because she lost her fucking son. Let her fucking grandstand. It’ll all blow over in a week or two anyway.
Look, she’s bringing alot of this on herself, no doubt. Maybe she is asking for a lot of the criticism. It doesn’t mean we have to give it to her.
And Hitchens. Please. Reading him take the piss out of Lady Di and Mother Theresa, etc. was fun when I was in my twenties—because it was so outrageous, so seemingly brave. And because he was a refreshing counterweight to an overabundance of hagiographic accounts. But let’s face it, he’s little more than an unusually articulate bully who fancies himself an iconoclast. Nowadays I just can’t take him seriously.
Midshipman Enfield
Does this guy imagine that he is a legitimate commentator on this subject, any more than this blog is a container for any legitimate treatment of this subject?
What a twat. Does a basement-dwelling troll like ppmbbqwtf feel like he’s a container for anything other than hentai trivia or Futurama fan-fiction porn? Unlikely!
Peter T.
Nothing that the flabulous Chrissie Hitchens says is going to give anyone anywhere the vapors. The fact that Hitchens, who doesn’t so much write as hiss, and his pro-war friends are so obsessed with Mrs Sheehan is providing constant amusement for those opposed to their foolish adventure.
Hitchens wants a referendum held among the relatives of war dead? Fine. Then let’s hold one among the general public. Polls suggest that the pro-war camp can expect support in the low 40s. Of course many Americans don’t really understand what’s at stake in Iraq – like salvaging the egos of bloviating, bibulous Professors of English, who were so terribly, flagrantly and recklessly wrong about Iraq.
Joe Albanese
beej said,
Sorry beej to so disappoint you. But its not a matter of “if the other side does it, its ok” but its standing up for oneself. Fighting back. What the Dems didn’t get for a long long time is that Americans like fighters in their politicians. If a politician is not willing to fight for himself then why would I think he is going to fight for me.
John Kerry is a perfect example. It isn’t that he got Swift Boated that was so damaging but how he and his wimpy handlers reacted. They reacted just as you sarcastically suggested we should respond to such attacks with “erudite and nuanced debate”. Fuck no. You slap me in my face I’m not going to debate the moral inadequacies of using physical force – I’m going to smack you back. Or worse.
Democrats gotta fight back and not just with intellectual debating points – that just talks to the choir but we have to talk with outrage.. with anger.. that gets the ear of the casual citizen out there. Hackett didnt’ get close to beating a Republican in a very Republican district because of nuanced debate. He got their attention because he called Bush a “chickenhawk”. He questioned Bush’ intelligence. He was in their face. That should be a lesson for all of you looking for “nuanced analysis and crackling debate”
caleb
Cindy Sheehan Experience
caleb
cindy sheehan experience “
Profbacon
Thank god Hitchens is questioning her. Sheehan deseves some serious personal motivational observations. Unlike the man who she wants to talk to, or his mouth pieces. “Last Throws” “A Few Bad Apples” “Immenent Threat” none of those deserve any more than a quick look-see. But when a grieveing mother starts crying… damn, we better look her statements over with a fine tooth comb.
caleb
Ok…..since it doesn’t work with the symbol (because it thinks it’s part of code I guess) I will have to spell it out….
cindy sheehan is “less than” terri schiavo experiment
Ben Regenspan
All that Hitchens seems to be offering is a guilt-by-association argument, followed by some kind of far-fetched thought experiment premised on the strange assumption that the left desires that “[o]nly victims and martyrs can decide!”. If this “gives me the vapors”, it is only because Hitchens completely fails to “question Cindy, or, worse yet … her supporters or their policy positions”, and instead resorts to patently offensive accusations of anti-semitism, an insult to victims of the all-too-real prejudice and hatred that so clearly isn’t in play here.
Here we see, per usual neocon argument, the thoughtless equation of “anti-Israel” positions with anti-semitic ones, the conflation of Israel with “the Jews”. I too am bothered by Sheehan’s dubious claim regarding her statement referencing Israel; I am also bothered by those who put the words of someone who is new to being a public figure under far more scrutiny than those of the president, and reflexively ascribe anti-semitism to boot.
Andrei
Some days John, you say some intelligent things. On others, you spew some incredible crap. I mean really, this sort of snark is really just dead weight … Do you want us to view you as a legitimate political critic or partisan snark machine? Give us more to work with as I can’t seem to figure it out based six months of reading this blog.
This post is beneath you. It makes you look like a Sean Hanity wannabe.
ET
Being that I am from Louisiana and voted in the election where the popular bumper sticker was “Vote for the Crook It’s Important” and having paid enoungh attention to have heard/read some of Pat over the years I don’t think Hitch’s using David Duke as part of his argument is going to help him win his argument or converts. Using Duke pretty much undermines his point as far as I am concerned. Pat says some interesting/sane things on occassion (though not when it comes to Israel or immigration) while Duke hasn’t ever said anything anyone with any claims to common sense or rationality should ever listen to or take seriously. David Duke should be ignored on EVERY FREAKIN’ TOPIC even if you agree. To give him copy/credit is giving him a legitimacy he in no way deserves. For me, as soon as Hitch used Duke to try and prove his point he lost me. I may be a bit sensitive to this and may be somewhat misinterpreting what he was trying to get across but there it is.
JoeTX
“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
Pelikan
Go easy on John, I think for many on the right, this whole Sheehan thing is a new experience. If you are opposed to Bush’s Policies, especially the war, you’re probably used to being called a traitor, or sub-human (thank you for that one Savage). You’ve heard the phrase “America Hater” so often that it’s become a joke amongst your own internet tribe. Let’s face it though, these epithets are used because they’re effective. Even the most jaded of us (I think that’s me.) feel a little sting inside each time we’re accused of stabbing our military in the back, because for all but the most naive undergraduates, soldiering IS a Noble Occupation. It’s a dirty rhetorical trick, but we’re used to it.
Now John’s feeling a bit of it too. Damn it, he WANTS to support a grieving widow, it’s just he disagrees with every damn thing that comes out of her mouth.
Uncomfortable, neh?
DougJ
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are seasoned and respected journalists. Cindy Sheehan — while I respect her loss — is just an angry (understandably perhaps) mother. She cannot expect to have the kind of clout they have on these issues.
DougJ
That said, Hitchens is an alcoholic Trotskyite, so I don’t particularly care what he says, although he can be funny.
capelza
Hitchens throws another haymaker…at a woman. Diana, Mother Theresa, now Cindy Sheehan. Sorry, it just struck me as funny. Hitchens isn’t fighting a righteous boxing match with someone his own size, but instead, is beating up on girls (dead ones are especially easy to punch)…hissy comes to mind.
Caroline
Haven’t you realized that Hitchens attaches himself to every lost cause out there? If you’re dependent on Hitchens to make your case for you, you’ve already lost the argument.
Bob
Come on, folks. Let’s look at the arc of this story, where it goes. Sheehan may not come back to the camp. If she does, she’ll be going back home in a couple of weeks. Bush will forever be the guy who couldn’t give a straight answer to the mother of a dead soldier. More and more people will go over the checklist: WMDs? No. Saddam the Bad Man? No, he’s captured. Al Qaeda and Osama? No, nothing to do with them. Oil? No, that’s more expensive than before. Democracy in Iraq? No, they’re still killing each other.
In other words, Cindy’s a bit player, that’s all she ever was, but she’s just further nudged Bush towards that precipice known as reality. I don’t think that Bush’s poll numbers can sink too much more, maybe ten more points at most. Diehards will cling to him, but the fallout for his political supporters will be telling next year.
Who knows? Maybe at his next press conference some reporter will have the balls to ask the President the same question that Sheehan wanted to ask. Then what does Bush do?
Veeshir
“Smear merchant! How dare he question Cindy, or, worse yet, how dare he question her supporters or their policy positions? Where is George Galloway when you need him?”
I don’t understand your problem with this Andrei. Perhaps you should read or re-read the above posts to see that this prophecy is indeed correct.
John, I just love what you’ve done with the place the last few months. At first I was sceptical, now I’m enjoying it more and more. The left and the right don’t mix all that much in the blogosphere anymore. It gets downright funny at times when they do.
The funniest is when some real Hannity wanna-be shows up and is even more dogmatic and hilarious than any except the most frothing of lefties.
I don’t comment much unless I’m in a certain mood, but I do enjoy it.
kl
The contents of this thread to the contrary.
The pro-war side is the one obsessed with Sheehan, then? Interesting. Oh, that’s right, they’re the ones who’ve made her the top news story every single day for weeks.
Geoduck
As someone else already noted, I have no problem with Mrs. Sheehan being asked tough questions, as long as George Bush gets a few as well. Send the “grown-ups” to Crawford, and keep them there after she has gone.
Otto Man
I’m surprised anyone reads Hitchens anymore. Every time I see his name, it reads off as “gin-soaked popinjay.”
Micky Finn
Hitchens is a tongue-chewin’, knee-walkin’ drunk who couldn’t find his ass in a hall of mirrors at high noon. Who gives a good goddamn what he thinks. He is too addled, arrogant, and just plain dishonest to simply admit he made a big mistake by serving as one of the chief merchandisers of the Iraq invasion and the policy formerly known as the Bush Doctrine.
W.B. Reeves
It’s interesting that critics of Sheehan put so much emphasis on the Rasmussen poll. Since the critics want to make Sheehan the issue I suppose this is understandible.
However, I find the Rassmussen article significant in terms of what it leaves unsaid. We are told the opinion of 73% of those polled. We are not told the response of the remaining 27%. Why is that? Did they not respond at all? Did they have no opinion?
It’s safe to assume that they do not share the negative opinion of the 38%. While they obviously didn’t issue a ringing endorsement of Sheehan, it is equally obvious that they don’t condemn her. So the Rasmussen poll would appear to illustrate that a whopping 62% of those polled are not buying into the attacks on her from the Right.
Trumpeting this poll result would seem to be further evidence of the increasing disconnect between the Right and the public at large. Not to mention a progressive decay in strategic reasoning.
Of course this is somewhat speculative since Rasmussen failed to provide complete data.