http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/8/12/94344/5076

Shameful.

What's shameful about it?

"The only one in this orgy of anti-war sentiment who has not spoken is Casey Sheehan, who gave his life that Iraq might be free."

Oh god....busting a gut laughing at this one. Too bloody rich.

More like "who gave his life in the low-income lottery that is the military". We can see that recruitment to "free Iraq" is at an all time high.

Man, I would respect right wingers more if they just said "Boy, what a F U that has been. Whoops! Oh well let's make the best of it and clean up and get out", instead of this nonsensical freedom bullshit.

You can read more of his asshattery here:

http://www.erickerickson.org/blog/

Sounds like a real nice guy, a proper good ol' boy from Georgia...

"...otherwise recognize that Mrs. Sheehan's actions discredit and undermine the work so many fallen soldiers works hard for."

Oh yeah, I'm sure all the dead soldiers really work hard so their life dream of killing and being killed without reason can be fulfilled.

"Those people just do not make the story flow like the left wants."

Or maybe they simply recognize that people join the forces for A) Financial reasons AND B) To defend our freedoms.

Iraq was much less a threat to our freedoms than those people that make comments like, "Mrs. Sheehan is using the body of a dead solider to get her fifteen minutes of fame" and suggest that she is somehow undermining the troops by protesting the war. The two are completely unrelated, I'm sorry for those too ignorant to realize that.

Furthermore, I'd hazard a guess that 'our boys' would also still be getting paid regardless of whether they were also getting killed for no reason. Tell me, which 'job' would you like to be doing?

"The only one in this orgy of anti-war sentiment who has not spoken is Casey Sheehan, who gave his life that Iraq might be free."

Well, I'm sure glad we have this asshat to speak for the kid, since his mother obviously can't get it 'right'.

"Whether he believed in the cause or was just doing his job, we will never know."

[But we can sure tell you all about WHY HE GAVE HIS LIFE! And it sure as hell wasn't so some commie blue state bitch could protest our village idiot's mistakes!]

"But he did not die in vain. Iraq will be free."

Free! Free like muslims!

"And in September we will all go back to forgetting who Cindy Sheehan is, not that we ever cared to begin with, and we will remain in Iraq."

Well, he certainly got one thing right.

I'm against this war, but I'm also uncomfortable with Cindy Sheehan's demand to have a second meeting with Bush.

If you're anti-administration, there are plenty of other issues to attack, but they lack the human-interest angle and don't pull as well on TV news.

AMAZING... crucify some mother who lost her son to advance YOUR agenda while the hypocrasy of your nails is their being made of the mother using her son's death to advance her agenda?

WOW.

WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE.

Does it ever occur to the cynical right wing media, who never does anything unless it is self-serving, that Cindy Sheehan really is just a mother who mourns her son's death and wants to stop this war? I'm sure she would prefer to reamin completely unknown and have her son alive again than to be in the media spotlight in the broiling Texas sun.

The article says, "Concurrently, the media and the left ignore those parents of the fallen who are offended by Mrs. Sheehan, support the President ...". Not true! The media has been trumpeting the pro-war voices for four years now ... it's about time someone on the left got a little bit of media exposure.

The right wing wants the war to continue because they get something out of it (affirmation of their ideology, profits from the sale of armaments and oil, global hegemony, etc.). The left wing would gain nothing from the end of the war (other than possibly winning some future elections). For the left, it is a matter of conscience, something that the right wing simply cannot understand.

Go Cindy!

I am flightless and thus don't have a wing. Perhaps she just wants the needless dying to stop. That's not a political agenda.

"Mrs. Sheehan is using the body of a dead solider to get her fifteen minutes of fame"

Yes, that is certainly what is happening ever time a mother grieves over the death of her only son.

What a reprehensible article.

Cindy Sheehan is a nutcase and the response from her family validates it. This time last year she was praising Pres. Bush, now a complete 180.

> This time last year she was praising Pres. Bush, now a complete 180

After eating a dish your opinion will often change, won't it? Or do you just think it tastes great no matter what?

To expand a bit on my previous post, the right wing sees everything as an opportunity for gain and cannot understand doing something simply based on emotion or principle.

In other words, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

+++To expand a bit on my previous post, the right wing sees everything as an opportunity for gain and cannot understand doing something simply based on emotion or principle.+++

No, I don't think this is true at all. Many people who are politically oriented toward the right have a nostalgic sort of view of the US, in which the US is the savior and benefactor of the world and can do no wrong. Therefore it's completely correct for us to go into places like Iraq and straighten those poor souls out. They don't understand or refuse to believe that the administration's motives are not benevolent. The US is benevolent, period.

Dana. That is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard.

... and I eat a lot of fiber.

The problem with both sides is that they are so polarized. The author of this article can see nothing but the us vs. them (liberals vs. conservatives, whatever). It's not about the message, it's about keeping score and winning.

On second thought, if Dana is saying that conservatives have no principles, then I agree. Luckily, I have no principles either, so it doesn't bother me.

In a competition based culture, that's how it works.

liberals have principles, conservatives have values?

Dana, maybe the one dimensional characterization of your former handle was acurate. You can change back if you want.

Liberals have principles, conservatives have interests. Usually controlling ones.

> Liberals have principles, conservatives have interests.

Oh whatever. You guys can't be serious, can you?

Sheesh. Jeff Barton must not have any controlling interests.

I don't think conservatives are evil, except maybe for many/most politicians who claim the label. Some of them do seem a bit self-interested and self-deluding, but there is a value system at work there. I really do think they're blinded in subtle ways by their belief (collectively, generally) that America is pure and good and the things that America does are by extension, pure and good. Most of them will come up with just about any justification to put America and it's actions in a good light, no matter how tenuous or flickering the light might be.

I don't think trust-in-the-left liberals like Dana here are any less blind.

Just to clarify, when I refer to right wingers, I'm referring to the powerful ones in the public eye as having no principles (i.e., Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh), just as some "famous" left-wingers are equally self-serving (James Carville, for example).

Many conservatives with right-leaning beliefs are principled and have genuine values. So I'm not trashing everyone who doesn't agree with me, and I should have made that clear in the beginning.

To paraphrase Richard Nixon: "I am not a bitch".

> For the left, it is a matter of conscience, something that the right wing simply cannot understand.

If you are referring to the Lefts with influence and power here, as you clarified, I just can't believe you buy this.

Yep your "clarification" sounds a lot like "backpedalling with smoke and mirrors thrown in", to me.

Nah - she's on the left, so it must be true and for the common good.

Of course, I'm on the right, so this is all pure unadulterated BS so I can rape Alaska for oil.

Life is so easy when everything is black and white. <- also a self-serving lie.

Philo (or not. Probably best not to believe me)

Who's Alaska, and why do you want her Rosemary?

Funny, after all my concern about Alaska, I heard recently that opening ANWR was not actually in the final bill. A Republican Representative said he could fix that -- but he's a) a Republican, and b) in the Congress, not the Senate.

Thus his opinions and ability to get things done are very suspect, at least to me.

> I don't think conservatives are evil

For argument's sake, let's say Barry Goldwater was the "father" of modern American conservatism. I'd still trying to figure out how the statist, corparatist, anti-Constitutionalist, deficit-spending Republicans in the mold of Bush, DeLay, Hastert, Santorum, et. al., are like Barry Goldwater. Or, for that matter, Newt Gingrich.

Steve Bell's current cartoon is a doozy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/archive/0,14955,1284265,00.html

The rightwingers seem to have adopted Goldwater's rhetoric but not his meaning.

Goldwater "two years later stated the Republican Party had been taken over by a 'bunch of kooks', i.e., supporters of TV evangelist Pat Robertson and Mecham."

He "criticized the military's ban on homosexuals: 'Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.' He also said, 'You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.'"

"In 1996 he told Bob Dole, who mounted his presidential campaign with less than ecstatic support from hard-line conservatives, 'We're the new liberals of the Republican Party. Can you imagine that?'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater


"I mean, the idea that Barry Goldwater came out for pro-choice so strongly, for gay and lesbian rights, and the difference between the social conservatives of today and the Goldwater conservatives of 1964 are just light years apart..."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/1998/goldwater_5-29.html

I don't know of anything more quintessentially American than an ordinary citizen asking a question of the powerful, and refusing to go away until it's answered.

"Cindy Sheehan is a nutcase and the response from her family validates it. This time last year she was praising Pres. Bush, now a complete 180."

Having your child die for no apparent good reason tends to do that to a person. Here's hoping you never have cause to become a "nutcase."

"I don't know of anything more quintessentially American than an ordinary citizen asking a question of the powerful, and refusing to go away until it's answered."

Nah - the Brits are giving us a run for the money on this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3396051.stm

(I know, old news - but the first thing I thought of when I read that)

Philo

The American press is awful at asking searching questions. They give the administration such an easy ride.

Our press can ask searching questions pretty well. But only when the questionee is outside the "official" spectrum...

Reminds me of the recent Daily Show interview of the award-winning journalist who pointed out NBC is really General Electric, which is a defense contractor... so he can't exactly do decent military coverage.

That was John Hockenberry, NBC journalist...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3949059/

"NBC is really General Electric, which is a defense contractor..."

That explains a lot.

Yeah, like why our military is using "Friends" marathons as psychological warfare tactics.

'"I don't know of anything more quintessentially American than an ordinary citizen asking a question of the powerful, and refusing to go away until it's answered."

Nah - the Brits are giving us a run for the money on this.'

Paxman is an ordinary citizen? The Tory leader is an ordinary citizen? How, uh, extraordinary.