If you can possibly stomach any more of this interminable story, go check out Patterico’s op-ed in the LA Times.
Frank Rich heads in the other direction.
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[…] UPDATE: Frankly this (h/t: John Cole) is just rich. […]
Demdude
And for another piece on Cindy Sheehan, Frank Rich in the NYTs.
The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21rich.html
ppGaz
That’s right, John. Three years into the biggest, and possibly most disastrous, foreign policy adventure of our time.
Two weeks into the Sheehan story.
Undoubtedly, you get up each morning bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready for the morning’s infusion of cheer and optimism from Iraq.
Terrible that you’ve had to put up with this awful Sheehan story for a few days. Terrible. We all weep for you.
Let me say this, at least before you take my post down:
Your treatment of this story is not your blog’s proudest moment, John. It’s been shabby, shallow and gratuitously snarky, unless I’ve missed something, from the get go.
If this is the best you can do with this story, my friendly advice would be to leave this story alone and go in another direction.
John Cole
Give it a rate, PPGAZ. I have done nothinjg but discuss the motives of the people siezing upon Cindy Sheehan’s loss as a political stunt and discussed Cindy Sheehan’s public statements, all the while decrying the attitudes of some on the right who have continued to be bottom-dwellers regarding her divorce and other issues.
In other words, I treated a public figure as a public figure. My real sin is not doing what you wanted me to do, which is to uncritically latch on to your latest martyr and use it to bash the Iraq effort.
Some days, the surest signs that my position is right are your full-throated and ill-conceived protestations.
ppGaz
Let me quote you, John: It’s a comments section.
I made a comment. Your nasty and hysterical reaction is inappropriate, and telling.
“Full throated?” Bullshit. You wouldn’t know a full-throated response if it bit you in the ass. You’ve never seen one from me, my friend, and you will know it when you see it.
“Ill concieved?” No, spot-on. Your characterization here is easily translated to mean: Oh heavens, you criticized me!
Maybe a dermatologist can help you with that thin skin of yours, John.
Your response is comeltely dishonest. What I “wanted you to do”, bullshit. What I suggested you do. What I “want” you to do has not been on the table, is not under discussion.
What I suggested you do is promote a discussion of the war issues, focussing not on why we got in there in the first place, but on what the hell we do now. I posed a simple and rather obvious question on that subject and unless I missed something, I haven’t seen any response to it from anyone, much less you. Which is fine, but there it is.
If you think you have a more relevant point or question, you could ask it, but you don’t. Or you could answer it, but you don’t. Or you could encourage someone else to tackle it, but you don’t. Or you could suggest that someone else come up with a better discussion-starter, but you don’t.
You just post snarky crap about the various media and other “reactions” to Sheehan, and the dimestore psychonalysis of Sheehan, or the critiques of Sheehan the TV Show … anything and everything but the important issues at hand.
You’re wrong, John, and I’m right, and while I understand that you can’t stand that idea, or worse, the idea that a poster would say it to you, that’s just the way it is.
M. Scott Eiland
Ah, yes, Frank–she’s really grabbed national sympathy by the throat.
Might want to put down that bottle of modeling glue and look at the Rasmussen poll, Frankie.
Bob
If Sheehan disappeared from the face of the earth right now, she’s already served her purpose. Bush is taking five days off from fishing to campaign for the war, which should be almost as successful as his campaign for stealing from social security.
The snarkiness, here and elsewhere, just seems to weaken the snarks’ moral and intellectual positions. Moral, because the bully-boy attitude of the right shines through, picking on a mother of a dead soldier. Intellectual because her question is so suffused with emotion: Why did you send my son to die in Iraq? All the theoretical PNAC bullshit doesn’t stand up to people dying for a reason the President can’t successfully enunciate.
capelza
M. Scott Eiland..the Rasmussen poll that shows that 62% of the population does NOT view her unfavourably? The poll that shows even in the military that only 48% view her unfavourably? That last one was the most interesting to me.
Or, also from Rasmussen, 54% of the same public views Bush unfavourably, so to speak? Shouldn’t that be the headline?
Have watched the Rasmussen poll fly around the internet and found it pretty telling. For a group that has used the 2004 election with the 3% win as proof of a mandate and therefore, the 48% who voted for the other guy as inconsequential, shouting to the rooftops about 38% seems rather silly…
John Cole
That was nasty and hysterical? To borrow a phrase, you wouldn’t know nasty and hysterical if you saw it.
As to the rest of your babble, it is just that. Babble. I have discussed the important issue- what to do next, repeatedly, even though it is difficult with you and others who translate ‘what to do next’ into little more than ‘how do I savage Bush?’
Aren’t you brave and noble? Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to set me straight.
You are simply fooling yourself if you think the point behind the Cindy Sheehan circus is to promote a discussion of the issues. The point is, as you and others have repeatedly stated, to ‘hold Bush accountable since Congress and no one else can.’
So excuse me if I NOW get nasty at your revisionism of her, and tell you to blow it out your ass. And you might go back and look at some of the threads in which you have commented here, and learn what ‘nasty and hysterical’ really looks like.
Over and over and over again, while dismissing Cindy Sheehan’s statements about Israel (you even tried the ‘she never said that’ schitck), you repeatedly accuse me of ‘not having answers.’ It is little more than the ‘Why are we in Iraq,’ catcalls launched by others, and I have, in large part, ignored you. This goes, concomitantly, with your willfully ignoring that there is a strategy in place, and one that likely will not change.
That strategy, quite clearly, is to attempt to hold down the violence (something which we have been completely inadequate in doing), move forward with the political process, all the while rebuilding and creating an Iraqi army/police structure that can, at some point, defend itself.
That is the strategy. That will continue to be the strategy. That is the strategic goal, an independent, self-sufficient, self-defending Iraqi state. It isn’t going to change, and it is why news of redefining the overall goal of a Democratic state are such a blow- those are strategic revisions.
The question at hand then is tactical. How do we achieve those strategic goals? Since you disagree with the overall strategic goals, and, of course, the reasoning behind those strategic goals, discussing tactial approaches to those goals with you is a pointless and painful endeavor.
Furthermore, you simply refuse to recognize that Cindy Sheehan represents the fringe of the political left, and you have even gone so far as to buy her defense that she didn’t make the statements she has made. Go read yourself. You about had a stroke because I pointed out that Sheehan’s silly and stupid Afghanistan comments were, well, silly and stupid. ‘What right do you have to call them stupid,’ you seethed, not recognizing I have as much right to call them silly and stupid as you do to state they are accurate. Cindy Sheehan is making specific policy demands, as well as demands of the President personally. Yet, according to you, no one is allowed to discuss her political proclamations because she is a private citizen.
The whole Sheehan circus was/is a political stunt. Nothing more, nothing less, and while it is terrible that she is suffering so regarding the loss of her son, the notion that she will be a launching pad for a dialogue on how to achieve the desired strategic goals in Iraq is ludicrous.
I don’t know what can be done to succeed eventually in Iraq. I do know that a withdrawal of troops would be absolutely disastrous, immediately launching the region into full-scale civil war, while providing an operating area for the terrorist groups that have coalesced in the region, as well as emboldening the Islamic regimes in Iran, the Islamist tendencies in neighbor states (Syria, Saudi Arabia), and should be avoided.
But those answers aren’t what you are after as you nobly throw 10-20 haymakers in every comments thread in an effort to highlight my ‘shameful’ treatment of Cindy Sheehan. So spare me.
Joe Albanese
ppGaz certainly struck a nerve here. Calm down John you are beginning to sound an awful lot like Christopher Hitchens. Those that supported this war are flailing about like hooked mackerals and I dont’ think it has anything really to do with Cindy Sheehan. They know they were wrong. They know that history is not going to be kind on the decision to invade a country that was no threat to us and has managed to paint us into a corner where there is no good result. A huge blunder. And not only was it a horrendously stupid decision it was incompetently carried out. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Bad decision. Bad execution. Disasterous results. Oh, John and company won’t admit it of course, much too much pride. Better to attack Cindy Sheehan for her stupid Afghanistan comments to distract from the stupid Iraq decisons.
But John, Hitch, and the others that were beating the drums for war much now realize that the likelyhood of a positive result coming from the Iraq war to be de minimus. And that is eating at them like sulfuric acid. Cindy Sheehan is just an outlet for their internal anger. Sorry to get so psych on you all but I can’t explain the insane over reaction of the otherwise rational John Cole.
John Cole said,
That may have been a viable strategy at some point, but I think what most objective people can see is that the possibility of that goal coming to fruition to be very low. Keep the faith John, maybe this adminstration can make it happen but judging from their past performance I dont think even you could by that optimistic.
Geoduck
Mr. Cole. This is your blog, and you are of course free to post whatever you want, but..
It’s past time for you to just drop this whole subject. You’re going to give yourself a whole set of matching ulcers, and, as has been noted more than once, it consistantly brings out the worst in you.
kl
It’s so funny that they think this is an insult.
Otto Man
Being compared to a gin-soaked popinjay is a compliment? A self-professed contrarian who spins in the wind like a weather vane?
Yeah, that is funny. What’s the highest praise in your mind? Saying someone has the gravitas of Otis the town drunk?
Far North
Hey, Otis only drank on Fridays and Saturdays.
Davebo
Hmm..
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2005/08/what_might_have.html
Well John, I don’t think you can pull off calling Bainbridge a slut so I’m not sure what your next move should be.
Perhaps you can pin the good old “intellectual elitist” tag on him.
John Middleton
Frey, like so many of Bush’s hard-working apologists, attempts the usual anti-logic of the smear in the article you have so thoughtfully brought to our attention here. The trick being not to bring the elephant out into the open, but to hide the elephant in a mound of garbage.
The issue remains that bush lied us into a military debacle that is will eventually cost this country 1 trillion dollars in borrowed money plus the lives of thousands of our fighting men and women. Nattering about the private details of the Sheehan family will do nothing to change that.
John Cole
Do you even read this site? Seems top me I have stated these things, ohh, 500 times in the last year.
Not to mention Bainbridge still agrees that cutting and running would be disastrous.
kl
Speaking of people who need to calm down…
Boronx
Whoah, John, that column is full of the same lies (that Cindy first reported her visit as unequivically positive, implying that Casey reinlisted because he believed in the mission) and irrelevencies we’ve been reading from the likes of Paterico for more than a week. I’m really surprised that you’d link to such a horrid slime mearchant so late in the day.
And you really need to read Rich’s column. You still don’t understand what she means to the Anti-War half of the country. She’s asking the questions we all want asked. Why the lies? Why did Bush sentence so many to death in Iraq? What were Bush’s reasons, what are his goals now, what’s the big plan?
Even relatively honest war supports like yourself don’t explain the war. As Spock would say, either you are unable to explain the war,or you are unwilling to explain the war.
The former calls your judgement into question, and the latter, your integrity.
Boronx
I see that you’ve read the Frank Rich Column. I don’t know if he’s judged the political climate of the country correctly, but I he has pegged the thinking of the vast majority of Sheehan supporters.
John Cole
I didn’t endorse either damned column. I linked it because a blogger was in the LA Times. I read half of it, realized where it was going, and quit. Been there, done that.
Same with the Rich column- read half of it, realized I had heard it all before, and quit.
And hence, the phrase ‘this interminable story.’ I have heard it all. There is nothing new. I am not interested or persuaded.
Otto Man
Well, I think Hitchens is pathetic. But I’m not getting worked up over him.
I just find it amusing that you could think being compared to him is a compliment.
Joe Albanese
John Cole said,
Oh… John Cole is not interested. Ok everyone, no more talk of how disasterous this misguided adventure has been. Lets end any discussion on how we were lied to. Please, lets not bore John with such intermindable debate about our young men and women dying in war he supported. Lets just “stay the course” John has shown us the strategy and the goals of the war. Thats it. No more discussion needed. Case closed. He’s not persuaded or, apparently, persuadable.
John, with all due respect, WTF are you talking about? Talk about putting your head in the sand.
kl
Of course not.
John Cole
You know, it is days like this when I just want to shut this fucking blog down and let you all go back to dKos.
The story I am uninterested in is the dog and pony show that is the Sheehan protest. There is nothing new there anymore. The battle lines have been drawn. Was there anything new in the Patterico story? Was there anything new in Frank Rich other than maybe a clever turn of phbrase?
No. I am no longer interested in this INTERMINABLE FUCKING STORY (IE SHEEHAN) BECAUSE ALL IT IS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE SEEN HERE IN THE PREVIOUS 20 COMMENTS. An I mean interminable- tedious, never-ending, and to boot- it brings out the worst in everyone.
I am also sick and fucking tired of some of you people taking everything I say, twisting it into the most sinister and disingenuous manner possible, and throwing it back in my face and pretending I am not fair enough to give you a forum and listen to you. You think you are convincing me? You think you are ‘winning’ something?
All you are doing is making me think about holding my nose and voting Republican again in 2006 just out of petty, small-minded mean-spiritedness, when after the last year I have gone as far away from the Republican party as I ever have been.
So put that in your god damn pipe and smoke it.
buckaroo
Agreed. I also think Clinton claiming he “spoke” for America when he had less than 25% of the voters support seemed rather silly…
Longshot
Why should Bush disrupt his busy schedule in order to address one woman’s horrific yet intensely personal tragedy?
Oh, I *coughTERRISCHIAVOcough* don’t know.
ppGaz
John, all due respect, take a breath, okay? How many times have I put a reasonable, responsible, relevant little question set out there in this context?
Questions. Not bold, obnoxious assertions. And I said, if these aren’t the right questions, then what are? The door is wide open to some discussion beyond the stale yes-you-are-no-I’m-not repartee of the lefty-righty slugfest.
So what happens? Well, the threads become potting soil for the likes of Darrell and his incessant ballbusting.
The point: If you want something to happen, you might have to ask for it. Do we want real discussion of this war thing, or not? By “we”, I mean “you.”
If we don’t, then why are we all testy? If we do, why don’t we just ask for it and get it? Maybe Sheehan isn’t the icon around which it should happen. Fine, stop posting about Sheehan. Maybe it DOES bring out the worst in everyone. So why new articles about it every day?
I don’t pretend to speak for anyone but me, but these things are guaranteed true about me: I am not trying to convince you of anything. “Convincing” is not in my lexicon. You can disagree with everything I say, for all I care. But this might go better if you didn’t yell at your readers for needling you about selling snark candy when maybe we’d rather have some meat and potatoes war talk.
If you think I’m wrong about the war, fine with me. Your point-by-point bashing and irrefutable argument is welcome. I’d rather have that, than a bunch of cranky exchanges which amount to “you think my style sucks and I piss you off.” I don’t care whether you think my style sucks or whether I piss you off. I am, however, quite interested in what you really think about the war situation these days. A helluva lot more interested than I am in what frigging Darrell thinks about it, let me tell you.
Well, we all know that you are not a petty and mean-spirited person, so I doubt that you’ll do that. Besides, voting R is not the worst thing that could happen. I could vote R myself. It depends a lot on who the R is, and who the D is. I’m not a party voter at the national level. The country is too important to sell down the river for a friggin party.
Bob
Why are we in Iraq?
Chuck Buckley
John: This is a rather hot issue right now, and by using the word “interminable” you leave some with the impression that you find the discussion tedious and wish to move on to other more interesting topics.
But as far as providing others with a forum for their opinions, therefore being deserving of a little mercy, I don’t know what to say. Goes with the territory?
Of course, you could always go the Rick “Nuthouse” Moran route and just delete the posts of those who offend you. Might leave your readers with the impression that you’re talking to yourself, but that would hardly be unique in the eccentric world of Republican blogs.
capriccio
Let’s talk football, shall we? There’s a guy for the Boston Globe whose job it is to cover the New England Patriots, but he’s been so wrong for so long (let Parcells “buy the groceries,” don’t hire Belichick, Bledsoe over Brady, etc.) about the Patriots that he has become a total laughing stock among fans who torment him constantly in fan blogs. As a result, he strikes out against his tormentors by constantly running down the Patriots (for non-football fans, of which JC is NOT one, the Pats have won 3 of the last 4 Super Bowls, so to read one of their beat writers beating on them all the time is about like watching the “who ate the strawberries” testimony in the Caine Mutiny Court Martial). I was sent on this little diversion when I read John telling us that he was going to vote Republican in 2006 if we didn’t all start behaving. Because I don’t want to twist your words, JC, let me present them to you whole:
“I do know that a withdrawal of troops would be absolutely disastrous, immediately launching the region into full-scale civil war, while providing an operating area for the terrorist groups that have coalesced in the region, as well as emboldening the Islamic regimes in Iran, the Islamist tendencies in neighbor states (Syria, Saudi Arabia), and should be avoided.”
When it comes time to vote in ’06, JC, I hope you ask yourself who put us on the brink of full scale civil war, coalescing terrorists, and enboldened Islamist tendencices in neighboring states? Your rude posters or your Republican President?
Bob
Big Ships In A Small Sea, by Bob
Got my hand on my heart.
I’m doing my part.
It’s just a small war, but at least it’s a start.
So let’s take a swipe
at a guy we dislike.
Wipe off that smile with one quick airstrike.
We’ve got five year-olds in camouflage,
patriotic hits with a bullet you can’t dodge.
Let’s fly unfriendly skies where
their piece is their Mirage.
Buy our brand of democracy.
Big ships in a small sea.
In the land of palm trees
this war was a breeze.
They line their crooked streets, cheering you and me.
We empty their stores,
treat the women like whores,
a few kids get killed but, hell, this is war.
See us jumping out of aeroplanes
kicking ass and taking names
just like the ads on the Sunday football games.
It’s a kind of destiny,
big ships in a small sea.
Watching TV
my eyes are fatigued
is the war over yet, and who’s the enemy?
They hide everywhere.
They don’t fight fair.
I keep asking myself what are we doing there?
Well, it seems this time we’ve hit a snag.
Boys come back in body bags.
Fighting someone else’s war is such a drag.
From here to eternity,
big ships in a small sea.
—
It’s a song I’ve written over my lifetime. The line about the Mirage is a pun from back when the French were battling it out with US arms makers to push their Mirage jets.
djc
Uh Bob,
Don’t quit your day job. If you have one.
Joe Albanese
I’ll be humming Bob’s diddy all the way to work tody.
goonie bird
call her buck buck bacaw she the dumist hen ever just runs around making no sense
adk46er
John, I know you’re aware of the fact that certain people take great pleasure in doing so… For some strange reason discussions over the internet bring out the worst in some people. I’m convinced; were you to say that water, at STP, is a liquid – you’d have people arguing with you about it.
ppGaz
That would require making a clear, unambiguous assertion, and then defending it with facts, reason, and logic.
Not compatible with the “let’s you and him fight” model.
IYGMD.
As for STP? Sure, some would say it’s Standard Temperature and Pressure, but I might argue that it’s a brand name based on the phrase Scientifically Treated Petroleum.
Corporate shill!!
adk46er
The choice of the term STP wasn’t by accident… None the less even if all wiggle room was to be removed by stating that water at 14.7 PSIA (pounds per square inch absolute) and 70 degrees Fahrenheit exists as a liquid, I think its still possible he’d get an argument.
ppGaz
Nah. My argument just evaporated.
DougJ
Casey Sheehan had already died. That cannot be undone.
Teri Schiavo was MURDERED by the liberals in the court. You might say differently, but that was the net effect.
I’m sure that if President Bush could bring Casey back, he would do it. But the truth is, he has a tight time schedule and like anyone else, he needs to unwind, He does not have the time to meet with every grieving family. If he could, he would. You are holding him to an unrealistic standard. Clinton didn’t meet with every service member who died in Somalia or Bosnia, which were far more bloody, in terms of US casualties, than this conflict. Where was the outrage then?
Longshot
Clinton didn’t meet with every service member who died in Somalia or Bosnia, which were far more bloody, in terms of US casualties, than this conflict. Where was the outrage then?
*blink blink* IIRC, we didn’t *have* any U.S. servicemembers killed in action in Clinton’s action in Bosnia. Utterly shameful of him to not meet with the fictional families of fictional dead servicemen – *shameful*.
Patterico
I’ve had this comment thread in my bookmarks for a while and hadn’t checked it; sorry for the late comment.
Boronx sez:
Whoah, John, that column is full of the same lies (that Cindy first reported her visit as unequivically positive, implying that Casey reinlisted because he believed in the mission) and irrelevencies we’ve been reading from the likes of Paterico for more than a week. I’m really surprised that you’d link to such a horrid slime mearchant so late in the day.
Boronx: first learn to spell, then learn to read.
John Cole sez:
I read half of it, realized where it was going, and quit.
Too bad. The second half was the best part!