ST. CINDY!

Cindy Sheehan on CNN yesterday: I know he (Bush) knows the war is unjust "because the Downing Street memo proved that." Bless you, honey! What democratic politician is even mentioning the Downing Street memo? I ain't hearing it if they are. It takes a fucking housewife to put the pressure on the president and his lies. An ordinary housewife, who writes her blog on www.huffingtonpost.com:

We had a very interesting day. We had Bush drive by really, really fast twice. I caught a glimpse of Laura. I was hoping after she saw me that she would come down to Camp Casey with some brownies and lemonade. I waited for her, but she never came.

No, Cindy. They are not going to send you any brownies or lemonade. They can't even acknowledge you. To do so would acknowledge the lies which took us into the war which killed your son, and so many other moms'.

Cindy continues:

We are here at the Crawford Peace House now. I came here so angry and I have been so encouraged and overwhelmed by the support from all over. I was thinking that there is no reason for us progressive liberals to be angry anymore. We have the power. One mom has shown that ordinary citizens can make a difference.

(Sing it, sweet sister! I wish I could Fed-Ex you some brownies and lemonade!)

Cindy continues:

We the people have to hold George Bush accountable. We have to make sure he answers to us. If he doesn't have to answer to Congress, or the media, we will force him to answer to us.

Cindy, I really think you can, girl! He's not even coming close to answering you. The closest he's come is to say that he's considered pulling out of Iraq early. He might of said that anyway because of dropping poll numbers surrounding his handling of the war. But that doesn't answer your question of WHY WERE WE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE??? Somehow, perhaps through your very ordinariness, you've struck a chord and I feel like it's happening at just the right moment to make a difference. Maybe Americans are overheated, tired of rising gas prices or of dodging the rain of frogs in Montana--whatever it is--your message is being picked up and broadcast as is. The Post only runs the story of your in-laws disagreeing with you, and CNN broadcast a story today about how counter-protesters to protest you, but your message is still coming through loud and clear. Some of these idiots have banners which say FREEDOM and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. The stupidity of that! Whose freedom are they referring to? Our freedom to attack whomever we choose without reason? Or the freedom of Iraqis who these counter-protesters could care less about as long as their fucking gas prices don't go up? And support our troops? One of those troops was your son, and that's who you ARE supporting. You don't want others to die needlessly! Isn't that support? How could anyone actually be so ignorant as to feel that we were in such danger from Iraq that the expense and human toll was ever worth it???

Cindy ol' gal, you've singlehandedly opened a hole in the administration's credibility so wide that they are now on attack mode. And they're slinging every bit of mud they can find. Stand strong and see this right through to that motherfucker's impeachment!

Cindy goes on:

Still putting out the O'Reilly fires of me being a traitor and using Casey's name dishonorably, my in-laws sent out a press statement disagreeing with me in strong terms; which is totally okay with me, because they barely knew Casey. We have always been on separate sides of the fence politically and I have not spoken to them since the election when they supported the man who is responsible for Casey's death. The thing that matters to me is that our family -- Casey's dad and my other 3 kids are on the same side of the fence that I am.

November 2, 2004 was not George Bush's accountability moment: today is. We are finished allowing him to get away with deceiving the American public and abusing his power.

We are mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore.

This is George Bush's accountability moment. That's why I'm here. The mainstream media aren't holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I'm not leaving Crawford until he's held accountable. It's ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize -- and distort -- the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States. But now it's time for him to level with me and with the American people. It's too late to bring back the people who are already dead, but there are tens of thousands of people still in harm's way.

CHRISTINE LAHTI ON CINDY

Cindy Sheehan is my hero. She is the hero of all Americans who make up the 62% of us who oppose this war. As an American exercising her right to free speech, she is a brave, passionate, living example of democracy, and she has the undeniable force and the moral authority of a grieving mother. Being a mother of three, I can't even imagine the depths of the grief she must feel having lost her son in this horrific war. But I can imagine that her grief and rage -- her demand for justice and action -- is a force that is unstoppable. No wonder Bush is intimidated. No wonder he can't even walk down his driveway. He is scared shitless. Whether he acknowledges it or not -- whether his aides try to insulate him from the truth or not -- his hands are covered in the blood of Cindy Sheehan's son.

GARY HART ON CINDY

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

The caskets keep coming home... with no public official to greet them or to respect them. They are the forgotten dead and they represent thousands more of the even more forgotten wounded. But wait. There is someone to hold the emperor to account. There is someone willing to look ridiculous, to be mocked and made a fool of. She is not a Senator. She is not a party leader. She is not in the regular establishment Rolodex of the Sunday talk producers. Yet, she holds the highest office available in a republic, that of citizen. When the last Marine leaves Iraq, dead or alive, she can claim more credit than them all. Because of the courage of one brave woman, she quite possible will have had more to do with finally bringing this great nation back to its senses... and to its principles. Remember her name. It is Cindy Sheehan.


AND ARIANNA HUFFINGTON WEIGHS IN:

It Takes a Village to Smear Cindy Sheehan

The right wing attacks on Cindy Sheehan -- desperate, pathetic, and grasping at straws -- expose much less about their target than about the attackers.

I mean, trying to slime a grieving Gold Star mom because she is inconveniently questioning the reasons her son was sent off to die in Iraq? Why that would be like trashing a much-decorated war hero or outing an undercover CIA agent…

Oh, right…

How much longer can the Bushies get away with mauling the very values they profess to stand for before their supporters start getting wise to the fact that the only value they really value is power?

Think about it, they’ve shown absolutely no compunction about turning the sleaze machine on an undercover agent who’d spent her career working to protect us from weapons of mass destruction, a Silver Star/Purple Heart veteran who volunteered to fight in a war the administration chickenhawks gamed the system to avoid, and now the mother of a dead soldier.

The right wing smear machine whirrs on -- using its media mouthpieces to do this dirtiest of dirty work. First it was the lie that Sheehan had, in the words of Drudge, “dramatically changed her account” of her June 2004 meeting with Bush. Despite the fact that this supposed flip-flop was a total distortion created by taking quotes out of context, the story quickly made its way into the hands of conservative bloggers… and allowed the TV jackal-pack to start tearing away at Sheehan’s flesh. For all the details on how this went down, check out Media Matters blow-by-blow description. The lowlights included Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Malkin tag-teaming up to push the idea that Sheehan’s “story hasn’t checked out”. O’Reilly also claimed Sheehan “is in bed with the radical left”, and, later suggested “this kind of behavior borders on treasonous”… and, for bad measure, tried to slime Sheehan by linking her with “people who hate this government, hate their country”.

Rush Limbaugh played his usual role, parroting the flip-flop party line, saying that Sheehan was “trying to pull a little bit of a swindle” and that “she’d been totally co-opted by…the whole Michael Moore leftist mentality.” Fred Barnes piled on, saying of Sheehan: “She’s a crackpot” (no doubt using the same video-based diagnostic technique pioneered by Bill Frist). And Michelle Malkin went all Patricia Arquette on the case, using her heretofore unpromoted ESP powers to let us know that Sheehan’s dead son Casey wouldn’t approve of “his mother’s crazy accusations”.

Beyond contempt. But I will say this for these sleazeballs: they are nothing if not resilient. After the Cindy as Flip-Flopper story was revealed as a very poorly done hatchet job, a second load of sludge was quickly dumped: the ludicrous statement from the (ahem) “Sheehan Family” condemning Cindy’s “political motivations and publicity tactics” (run under a banner headline proclaiming “Family of Fallen Soldier Pleads: Please Stop, Cindy”).

Where do I start with this piece of manufactured offal? How about the fact that no one put their names on the statement, which was “signed” by “Casey Sheehan’s grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins”. Don’t these folks have names? The only name attached to the “Sheehan Family” statement (delivered to Drudge via email with permission “to distribute as you wish”) belongs to Cherie Quartarolo who describes herself as Casey’s aunt and godmother. So did I miss something? Since when does godmother outrank mother? What I really want to know is: how does Casey’s second-cousin-twice-removed feel about Cindy’s vigil? How about his ex-brother-in-law’s cleaning lady?

Cindy deals with all this very succinctly in her latest post, but suffice it to say that Casey’s dad and their three other children are all supportive of what Cindy is doing. Hmm… I always thought conservatives were big proponents of the importance of the nuclear family. Does James Dobson know about this attempt to undermine the primacy of a mother?

I guess it takes a village to trash a grieving Gold Star Mom.