"Pat, this is W...I got a prayer request for you."
The President is not one to admit a mistake...mostly because he isn't one to realize he's made any, since he's on a mission from God and all.
Not meeting a second time with Cindy Sheehan is one of the dumbest mistakes I can think of. Bring her up to the ranch, let her make her accusations (all of which she has politely made on TV in advance) and simply repeat whatever Rove and Condi tell you to say, put her back in the car, send her to the end of the driveway and go on TV to say you've met with her and you have agreed to disagree, which is the embodiment of everything great about America.
And it's over.
Why on Earth would you not do that if you could solve the problem so easily?
Well, because you don't think there's a problem, first of all. Second, if there is a problem, it isn't your problem.
That pretty much sums up the philosophy of this Administration. Besides, who is getting the most benefit out of Cindy's protest? Cindy? Hell, no!
Look at it from inside the Ranch. There's this grieving mother out there at the end of the driveway who is the living embodiment of everything you hate about the Liberal Left. Let her talk long enough, and let the Anti-War people use her as a flag, and the dividends start rolling in.
For every minute of publicity she gets for her cause, you get an hour of bloviating by the AM Propaganda Machine decrying her support of the terrorists and her dishonor of her own son's sacrifice. Plus you get to criticize her for exploiting her son's death for the Anti-War crowd while you get away with exploiting her son's death in support of the war without anyone criticizing you for it.
And the Liberal Media, in their zeal for balanced coverage, will present mother after mother of dead soldiers who support you. You can't buy publicity like that, and you should know, because you've tried!
Not meeting with her shows you have courage and resolve in the face of harsh criticism. Best of all, she keeps the War on Terror (best thing that ever happened to your presidency) in the news. She literally forces you to keep talking about the war, instead of having to bring it up yourself at every opportunity. When you address her concerns in a press conference instead of a private conversation, you get to hammer the same talking points that have kept you in office...that we're at war and to do anything but what you want us to do would be a terrible mistake which helps the Terrorists and hurts America. Then sit back and let your minions do the negative attack campaign for you. It's always worked before, why change tactics now?
But, all good things must come to an end...and the protest was starting to be more of a distraction...and with people shooting shotguns down there and saying things like "Dove season is coming soon" this whole thing could get ugly and start hurting rather than helping.
So, you call up Pat Robertson and ask him if, while he's praying for Supreme Court Justices to drop dead, he can manage to slip in a request to God to do something to get Cindy out of Crawford.
Then, next thing you know, Cindy's mother has a stroke and the troublesome Gold Star Mother flies to California.
God's been good to George W. Bush. He's been a little rough on Cindy Sheehan.
You have to wonder if Bushco has a whole wing of the Pentagon devoted not to new weapons technology but to focused prayer for the destruction of Evil Doers and the misguided supporters of the Enemy. If something bad happens to you, did it happen because you were unlucky or because George and Pat got God to lift his veil of protection from you?
I hope Cindy's Mom is OK, the woman has had enough tragedy in her life. The thing Bush should do now is go visit her at the hospital, or send a card, or something. But he won't. Because he doesn't give a shit.
Here are some of my biggest beefs about the Cindy Sheehan thing.
1) That Neal Boortz can get away with calling her a publicity whore. No kidding, I heard it on the radio. Can someone tell me how Cindy Sheehan is exploiting her son's death when she wants to confront Bush about the justification for the war which killed him, but Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh are not exploiting her son's death when they use it to fuel a backlash against the entire anti-war movement?
2) That the good people of Crawford are angry about Cindy and Camp Casey disturbing the Peace but not angry at Bush for spending so much of his time in office down there in Crawford. People have a right to protest their President when they disagree with him, and reasonable people would have an expectation that the President would be in Washington DC. If Crawfordians are upset about the American Citizens protesting in their own back yard, then tell Bush to get the hell out of your back yard and back in the White House where he's supposed to be. War President or Vacation President? Doesn't it upset anyone that he's trying to be both at the same time? Win the war and then take a vacation.
3) The way the people who are angry at Cindy Sheehan think they are the ones supporting the troops. How is demanding to know the truth about why our service men and women were deployed doing them a disservice? If I were in the military, I'd rather have the support which resulted in my only going into harm's way for a clearly defined and easily justified purpose than the soup of lies we're being fed about this conflict. How is Cindy Sheehan disgracing the service of her dead son and that of all the other fallen warriors....but the guy in the pick up truck that ran over the white crosses they planted down there to represent them is somehow a better patriot doing more honor to the fallen dead?
4) How good Americans like Rush Limbaugh applauded the Crawford citizen who was firing his shotgun in the air and saying "Dove season is coming." Holy crap. Do I even need to elaborate on why this is a gripe?
5) How Sean Hannity and other conservative propagandists keep pointing out that the President already met with Cindy once. Well, yeah, but that was BEFORE the ample evidence that the justifications for the war were bogus. If I were Cindy, I'd want another audience with the guy who sent my son into harm's way, too.
6) How, in the interest of being fair and balanced in their anti-war coverage, the liberal media presents an equal or greater number of mothers of dead soldiers who support the president. I think that the coverage should reflect the national opinion polls, and that would mean we should be seeing only about 34% of the mothers of dead soldiers supporting the president who sent those soldiers to Iraq. Not 50% or more mothers who think Cindy should shut up and go away.
7) That Cindy Sheehan is exploiting the deaths of soldiers to further a personal political agenda. I just heard a neighbor of Bush down in Crawford, who was a former soldier himself, make that argument. Um, sir, thanks for your service, but with all due respect, hasn't George W. Bush been doing that since September 11th? How's come you're mad at Cindy Sheehan and not at George?
8) How when comparisons are made between this war and Viet Nam it is either to demonstrate that this war isn't so bad, or that liberals just want to recapture their glory days when they used a war to bring down a President. Well, first of all, Nixon did himself in, and second, instead of comparing the numbers of dead and spent dollars of Iraq to all of Viet Nam, let's look at the numbers for just the first two years of Viet Nam. And also take into account that there was nothing at stake in Viet Nam anywhere near as important as the stability of the region which supplies the world with petroleum.
There isn't really any comparison, because Iraq is so much worse in nearly every way. In particular because we should have known better. But, the comparisons have been there from the beginning--and every one who made them was poo-poohed as a Liberal Chicken Little. Well, this week even that radical liberal left-leaning Communist Henry Kissenger was pointing out comparisons between Viet Nam and Iraq.
If that isn't a sign of the End times, I don't know what is.
The sky is falling.
Really.
So, maybe it isn't such a bad idea to hedge your bets and send a donation to Pat Robertson. He's the only one who seems to be getting results.
Sources:
And What does the Right Wing Propaganda Machine have to say?
Not meeting a second time with Cindy Sheehan is one of the dumbest mistakes I can think of. Bring her up to the ranch, let her make her accusations (all of which she has politely made on TV in advance) and simply repeat whatever Rove and Condi tell you to say, put her back in the car, send her to the end of the driveway and go on TV to say you've met with her and you have agreed to disagree, which is the embodiment of everything great about America.
And it's over.
Why on Earth would you not do that if you could solve the problem so easily?
Well, because you don't think there's a problem, first of all. Second, if there is a problem, it isn't your problem.
That pretty much sums up the philosophy of this Administration. Besides, who is getting the most benefit out of Cindy's protest? Cindy? Hell, no!
Look at it from inside the Ranch. There's this grieving mother out there at the end of the driveway who is the living embodiment of everything you hate about the Liberal Left. Let her talk long enough, and let the Anti-War people use her as a flag, and the dividends start rolling in.
For every minute of publicity she gets for her cause, you get an hour of bloviating by the AM Propaganda Machine decrying her support of the terrorists and her dishonor of her own son's sacrifice. Plus you get to criticize her for exploiting her son's death for the Anti-War crowd while you get away with exploiting her son's death in support of the war without anyone criticizing you for it.
And the Liberal Media, in their zeal for balanced coverage, will present mother after mother of dead soldiers who support you. You can't buy publicity like that, and you should know, because you've tried!
Not meeting with her shows you have courage and resolve in the face of harsh criticism. Best of all, she keeps the War on Terror (best thing that ever happened to your presidency) in the news. She literally forces you to keep talking about the war, instead of having to bring it up yourself at every opportunity. When you address her concerns in a press conference instead of a private conversation, you get to hammer the same talking points that have kept you in office...that we're at war and to do anything but what you want us to do would be a terrible mistake which helps the Terrorists and hurts America. Then sit back and let your minions do the negative attack campaign for you. It's always worked before, why change tactics now?
But, all good things must come to an end...and the protest was starting to be more of a distraction...and with people shooting shotguns down there and saying things like "Dove season is coming soon" this whole thing could get ugly and start hurting rather than helping.
So, you call up Pat Robertson and ask him if, while he's praying for Supreme Court Justices to drop dead, he can manage to slip in a request to God to do something to get Cindy out of Crawford.
Then, next thing you know, Cindy's mother has a stroke and the troublesome Gold Star Mother flies to California.
God's been good to George W. Bush. He's been a little rough on Cindy Sheehan.
You have to wonder if Bushco has a whole wing of the Pentagon devoted not to new weapons technology but to focused prayer for the destruction of Evil Doers and the misguided supporters of the Enemy. If something bad happens to you, did it happen because you were unlucky or because George and Pat got God to lift his veil of protection from you?
I hope Cindy's Mom is OK, the woman has had enough tragedy in her life. The thing Bush should do now is go visit her at the hospital, or send a card, or something. But he won't. Because he doesn't give a shit.
Here are some of my biggest beefs about the Cindy Sheehan thing.
1) That Neal Boortz can get away with calling her a publicity whore. No kidding, I heard it on the radio. Can someone tell me how Cindy Sheehan is exploiting her son's death when she wants to confront Bush about the justification for the war which killed him, but Neal Boortz and Rush Limbaugh are not exploiting her son's death when they use it to fuel a backlash against the entire anti-war movement?
2) That the good people of Crawford are angry about Cindy and Camp Casey disturbing the Peace but not angry at Bush for spending so much of his time in office down there in Crawford. People have a right to protest their President when they disagree with him, and reasonable people would have an expectation that the President would be in Washington DC. If Crawfordians are upset about the American Citizens protesting in their own back yard, then tell Bush to get the hell out of your back yard and back in the White House where he's supposed to be. War President or Vacation President? Doesn't it upset anyone that he's trying to be both at the same time? Win the war and then take a vacation.
3) The way the people who are angry at Cindy Sheehan think they are the ones supporting the troops. How is demanding to know the truth about why our service men and women were deployed doing them a disservice? If I were in the military, I'd rather have the support which resulted in my only going into harm's way for a clearly defined and easily justified purpose than the soup of lies we're being fed about this conflict. How is Cindy Sheehan disgracing the service of her dead son and that of all the other fallen warriors....but the guy in the pick up truck that ran over the white crosses they planted down there to represent them is somehow a better patriot doing more honor to the fallen dead?
4) How good Americans like Rush Limbaugh applauded the Crawford citizen who was firing his shotgun in the air and saying "Dove season is coming." Holy crap. Do I even need to elaborate on why this is a gripe?
5) How Sean Hannity and other conservative propagandists keep pointing out that the President already met with Cindy once. Well, yeah, but that was BEFORE the ample evidence that the justifications for the war were bogus. If I were Cindy, I'd want another audience with the guy who sent my son into harm's way, too.
6) How, in the interest of being fair and balanced in their anti-war coverage, the liberal media presents an equal or greater number of mothers of dead soldiers who support the president. I think that the coverage should reflect the national opinion polls, and that would mean we should be seeing only about 34% of the mothers of dead soldiers supporting the president who sent those soldiers to Iraq. Not 50% or more mothers who think Cindy should shut up and go away.
7) That Cindy Sheehan is exploiting the deaths of soldiers to further a personal political agenda. I just heard a neighbor of Bush down in Crawford, who was a former soldier himself, make that argument. Um, sir, thanks for your service, but with all due respect, hasn't George W. Bush been doing that since September 11th? How's come you're mad at Cindy Sheehan and not at George?
8) How when comparisons are made between this war and Viet Nam it is either to demonstrate that this war isn't so bad, or that liberals just want to recapture their glory days when they used a war to bring down a President. Well, first of all, Nixon did himself in, and second, instead of comparing the numbers of dead and spent dollars of Iraq to all of Viet Nam, let's look at the numbers for just the first two years of Viet Nam. And also take into account that there was nothing at stake in Viet Nam anywhere near as important as the stability of the region which supplies the world with petroleum.
There isn't really any comparison, because Iraq is so much worse in nearly every way. In particular because we should have known better. But, the comparisons have been there from the beginning--and every one who made them was poo-poohed as a Liberal Chicken Little. Well, this week even that radical liberal left-leaning Communist Henry Kissenger was pointing out comparisons between Viet Nam and Iraq.
If that isn't a sign of the End times, I don't know what is.
The sky is falling.
Really.
So, maybe it isn't such a bad idea to hedge your bets and send a donation to Pat Robertson. He's the only one who seems to be getting results.
Sources:
- Terrible Week for Cindy Sheehan Times of London Online
- Cindy Sheehan: YES - 63 percent - MSNBC poll: Bush NO - 94 percent
- Polling Data
- A Soldier's Letter in Support of Cindy Sheehan
And What does the Right Wing Propaganda Machine have to say?
- Alan Nathan: Cindy Sheehan Urinates on Her Son's Grave The title has since been changed to "desecrates" instead of "urinates", which is kinder and gentler, but still rhymes.
- Ann Coulter: Cindy Sheehan as Commander In Grief
- Patrick Hurley: Will SOMEONE Hit Her Mute Button! BEWARE THE POP UPS!
- Rush Limbaugh: "When I said that nothing about Sheehan's story is real, that it is just forged documents, I didn't mean she was lying about her son being dead." (This is a forged and made up quote, but pretty dang close to what he actually said. Go to his website and see him try to explain his way out of it.)
- Move America Forward: "Cindy, you're not the mouth of me!" They are coming to Crawford and ready to rumble.
posted by Archie Levine at 4:38 PM
5 Comments:
Oh and actually I left that comment Archie. My husband must have been blog surfing and was signed in under his name.
Thanks, Rhonda, though I was hoping I'd picked up a new fan. :)
Two posts in two days. There's nothing left for me to do but disappoint.
But, I've got a week before school starts again and plan to spend a lot of it in my office with CNN running in the background. That tends to lead to frequent posting, so there is hope I'll be more regular.
When is your next post coming?
Holy Crap! I've been attacked by Spam Bots. Nearly a dozen posts by Annonymous posters with a vaguely complimentary comment that could apply to any vain blogger's work and a hyperlink to poker sites, or magician sites, or lovemaking sites, etc.
Dang. I hate that stuff. It takes so long to delete them.
Steve (of Distance Blog, not Rhonda in drag), Thanks for the comment. I checked your profile and went to your blogs. Distance looks like a great place, nice to see a news blog with so many active team members.
I've linked you, so keep up the good work over there so I don't have to disable the link. I hate it when my links go to dead blogs or blogs "under reconstruction." Christploitation is getting on my nerves it has been reconstructing for so long. But it was such a good blog I can't give up hope that the link will take you to an active page again someday.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by.
It's happening, the backlash, slowly but surely a backlash against the Rush's and Hannity's will come - that's what I believe.
Logic will out, eventually. It's hard to believe that a mother wouldn't demand an answer about the death of her son, which is why those critizising her are going to hear back from folks that used to support them and now support her.
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