Feeding Frenzy
I just scrolled our newswire with a “most recent 200 stories” search. That searches every story on the AP, New York Times, Knight-Ridder, McClatchy, Cox, and a couple other news wires. I mean every story: lottery numbers, golf scores, advice columns, the whole nine yard. And seventy of the 200 stores are about Cindy Sheehan.
I know it’s a slow news day. But that’s an awful lot of coverage.
The AP slugs its stories on her “Bush-Peace-Mom.” That’s a bit disingenuous. She’s not asking for peace. She’s asking for all the American troops to be brought home — which is sure to unleash a whole lot of non-peace on Iraq and beyond. If she has an argument that bringing the troops home now will pacify Iraq, I haven’t read it in her words.
Neither does she claim she was against the war if it had been fought for the reasons she insists Bush put forth in 2002, but lied about.
Look, she’s a grieving mother. Her son was a hero. She and her husband did a good job, raising a boy who could make honorable, ethical decisions even if his parents disagreed with them. She deserves our sympathy, prayers, patience, and a glass of cold tea and a seat in she shade if she wants to make her protest in Texas in August.
But since when did being a victim confer instant moral authority? She was saying the same things before Casey was killed. She wasn’t in 70 of 200 news stories on April 3, 2004.
This isn’t a slam at her. It’s a slam at the media.
If this one mother, because of what happened to her son, becomes, in the media’s vision, the sole occupant of the high ground in the debate over what ought to be done in Iraq, what about the thousand-some other American mothers who have not gone to where the cameras are?
Meanwhile, courtesy of Goy, my attention was called to this:
I know it’s a slow news day. But that’s an awful lot of coverage.
The AP slugs its stories on her “Bush-Peace-Mom.” That’s a bit disingenuous. She’s not asking for peace. She’s asking for all the American troops to be brought home — which is sure to unleash a whole lot of non-peace on Iraq and beyond. If she has an argument that bringing the troops home now will pacify Iraq, I haven’t read it in her words.
Neither does she claim she was against the war if it had been fought for the reasons she insists Bush put forth in 2002, but lied about.
Look, she’s a grieving mother. Her son was a hero. She and her husband did a good job, raising a boy who could make honorable, ethical decisions even if his parents disagreed with them. She deserves our sympathy, prayers, patience, and a glass of cold tea and a seat in she shade if she wants to make her protest in Texas in August.
But since when did being a victim confer instant moral authority? She was saying the same things before Casey was killed. She wasn’t in 70 of 200 news stories on April 3, 2004.
This isn’t a slam at her. It’s a slam at the media.
If this one mother, because of what happened to her son, becomes, in the media’s vision, the sole occupant of the high ground in the debate over what ought to be done in Iraq, what about the thousand-some other American mothers who have not gone to where the cameras are?
Meanwhile, courtesy of Goy, my attention was called to this:
My mom got through it by eventually starting a crusade against the road that my sister drove on, insisting that it had contributed to the death of her daughter. She sued the state and county promising the use the proceeds to fund a swimming pool at our high school, a sport my sister had loved. It was ludicrous, and it was a bit embarrassing, but it didn’t matter. It was good to see mom with fire in her eyes instead of the dark haunted soul she had become for a few bleak months.
Nothing came of it, but it gave her something to do for the next year. It gave her a way to feel that my sister’s life had not been in vain, that others would benefit from her death. By the time the suit had been dismissed, my mother had learned how to live in the world again and today, she hardly remembers the intensity of her temporary mania.
So when I look at Cindy Sheehan, I do so out of total sympathy. I’ve seen my own mother racked with guilt at decisions that she thinks she made in error, but were innocent and had nothing to do with what caused my sisters death. I’ve seen my mother beg God to go back and make the world as it was, a world that could never be again. I’ve seen my mother cry from sunrise to sunset and do it all over again the next day. I’ve seen my mother deal with the horror of not being able to do a damn thing to bring back the life she gave birth to.
There is no loss like the loss of a child, and no matter how old we are, we are always someone’s child.
But Cindy Sheehan, for all the sympathy I have for her, is also wrong and Cindy Sheehan is also a liar. What’s worse, Cindy Sheehan is taking action to ensure that more American soldiers are killed by foolishly aligning herself with the insurgents, which will empower them and ensure that more innocent Iraqis are killed and more American troops are killed. She is feeding the very forces of hate and terror that killed her son.
Labels: Cindy Sheehan
