Pendragon_6
08-24-2005, 08:16 AM
By: Phil Brennan
Ether Zone
The media is all agog with what they see as a burgeoning "peace" movement, symbolized by the demented rantings of Mrs. Cindy Sheehan and her far-left cohorts and propagandized by the elitist mainstream press which couldn't care less that they are cooperating in the shameful and cynical exploitation of the death of an American soldier.
Having watched this kind of thing develop during our ill-fated Vietnam experience I can't escape feelings of deja vu - we are seeing an exact replay of the anti-Vietnam war movement where Jane Fonda then occupied the role of Mrs. Sheehan, aided and abetted by one John Kerry and the media.
I had always been under the impression that the President of the United States is the commander and chief, and responsible as such for the conduct of our foreign and military policies. In that capacity his constitutional duties do not require him to take time out from fighting a war to sit down and have a chat with obviously disturbed mothers, even one who has lost a son in the conflict, and with who he had already met.
He should especially be exempted from having to pay attention to a woman who described him to something called Veterans For Peace as "That lying bastard, George Bush ... taking a five-week vacation in time of war. You get that maniac out here to talk with me in person. Bush needs to tell me why my son died in Iraq. I've got the whole month of August off, and so does he."
Normal human beings endowed with a modicum of common sense would dismiss this kind of nonsense out of hand. Wartime presidents have better things to do than listen to the advice of anybody given to such bizarre delusions, and the media should have enough sense to treat the lady as they would ordinarily treat anyone similarly afflicted with such a whole slew of delusions.
But no, that cannot be allowed. Mrs. Sheehan has presented a golden opportunity for the effete Marxist media to engage in their favorite practice of Bush bashing, especially when it concerns the hated war in Iraq they try so hard to depict as a dismal failure.
So they gathered round and elevated her to sainthood down there in Crawford, Texas - one of their least favorite places in the entire U.S. - after all they don't have a decent five star restaurant or even a Starbucks, and there isn't a single shop in Crawford where they can buy such necessities as Birkenstocks, gourmet food or consume passable foreign vintages.
And then they found Cindy, and Crawford became at least bearable.
They managed to ignore the rather inconvenient fact that Mrs. Sheehan was being deftly managed by public relations experts - to make the spectacle work she had to be portrayed as poor simple "Mother" Sheehan, grieving mother of a dead soldier, instead of what she really is - the unbalanced icon of just about the farthest left collection of crazies ever cobbled together since the days of the popular communist fronts in the 30s that lionized the Soviet Union as the very heart and soul of progressivism.
Having been so canonized, St. Cindy is trotted forth as the voice of reason calling upon this country to do the decent thing and bug out of Iraq, leaving the people of that suffering land to the tender mercies of the butchers and decapitation adepts the media prefers to call “insurgents,” or in their wilder moments, "freedom fighters," battling the imperialist designs of evil George W. Bush who had the effrontery to get himself elected President not once but twice in the face of their fevered opposition.
The drumbeat is now reaching the deafening stages - St. Cindy has energized the masses and single handedly, we are told, created a vast and unstoppable anti-war movement every bit as potent as the one that forced us out of Vietnam, leaving the people there to the mercies of a brutal communist - er .. "progressive" - regime.
Who's kidding who? Poor Cindy is nothing but a handy tool to be exploited - the media and the media alone has trumped-up the anti-war hysteria now being expressed by a segment of the population that has always been against the conflict. The media wants us out of Iraq, and they don't care what they have to do the achieve that result. If simply refusing to report substantial positive news from Iraq in favor of emphasizing whatever bad news they can hype up, then there is always a Cindy or two, or even a Jane Fonda and John Kerry to glamorize.
I realize that there are a lot of people who seriously question the wisdom of our having invaded Iraq and many of them have raised legitimate doubts about the venture. But we are now there, like it or no, and we have a tough job to do. If we have an ounce of national pride and any sense of responsibility left, we will stay there until the job is done.
We need to sing along with George M. Cohan's classic World War I war song Over There," which defiantly proclaimed " We'll be over, we're coming over, And we won't come back till it's over, over there."
It's not over, over there.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact
EtherZone (http://www.etherzone.com/2005/bren082405.shtml)
Ether Zone
The media is all agog with what they see as a burgeoning "peace" movement, symbolized by the demented rantings of Mrs. Cindy Sheehan and her far-left cohorts and propagandized by the elitist mainstream press which couldn't care less that they are cooperating in the shameful and cynical exploitation of the death of an American soldier.
Having watched this kind of thing develop during our ill-fated Vietnam experience I can't escape feelings of deja vu - we are seeing an exact replay of the anti-Vietnam war movement where Jane Fonda then occupied the role of Mrs. Sheehan, aided and abetted by one John Kerry and the media.
I had always been under the impression that the President of the United States is the commander and chief, and responsible as such for the conduct of our foreign and military policies. In that capacity his constitutional duties do not require him to take time out from fighting a war to sit down and have a chat with obviously disturbed mothers, even one who has lost a son in the conflict, and with who he had already met.
He should especially be exempted from having to pay attention to a woman who described him to something called Veterans For Peace as "That lying bastard, George Bush ... taking a five-week vacation in time of war. You get that maniac out here to talk with me in person. Bush needs to tell me why my son died in Iraq. I've got the whole month of August off, and so does he."
Normal human beings endowed with a modicum of common sense would dismiss this kind of nonsense out of hand. Wartime presidents have better things to do than listen to the advice of anybody given to such bizarre delusions, and the media should have enough sense to treat the lady as they would ordinarily treat anyone similarly afflicted with such a whole slew of delusions.
But no, that cannot be allowed. Mrs. Sheehan has presented a golden opportunity for the effete Marxist media to engage in their favorite practice of Bush bashing, especially when it concerns the hated war in Iraq they try so hard to depict as a dismal failure.
So they gathered round and elevated her to sainthood down there in Crawford, Texas - one of their least favorite places in the entire U.S. - after all they don't have a decent five star restaurant or even a Starbucks, and there isn't a single shop in Crawford where they can buy such necessities as Birkenstocks, gourmet food or consume passable foreign vintages.
And then they found Cindy, and Crawford became at least bearable.
They managed to ignore the rather inconvenient fact that Mrs. Sheehan was being deftly managed by public relations experts - to make the spectacle work she had to be portrayed as poor simple "Mother" Sheehan, grieving mother of a dead soldier, instead of what she really is - the unbalanced icon of just about the farthest left collection of crazies ever cobbled together since the days of the popular communist fronts in the 30s that lionized the Soviet Union as the very heart and soul of progressivism.
Having been so canonized, St. Cindy is trotted forth as the voice of reason calling upon this country to do the decent thing and bug out of Iraq, leaving the people of that suffering land to the tender mercies of the butchers and decapitation adepts the media prefers to call “insurgents,” or in their wilder moments, "freedom fighters," battling the imperialist designs of evil George W. Bush who had the effrontery to get himself elected President not once but twice in the face of their fevered opposition.
The drumbeat is now reaching the deafening stages - St. Cindy has energized the masses and single handedly, we are told, created a vast and unstoppable anti-war movement every bit as potent as the one that forced us out of Vietnam, leaving the people there to the mercies of a brutal communist - er .. "progressive" - regime.
Who's kidding who? Poor Cindy is nothing but a handy tool to be exploited - the media and the media alone has trumped-up the anti-war hysteria now being expressed by a segment of the population that has always been against the conflict. The media wants us out of Iraq, and they don't care what they have to do the achieve that result. If simply refusing to report substantial positive news from Iraq in favor of emphasizing whatever bad news they can hype up, then there is always a Cindy or two, or even a Jane Fonda and John Kerry to glamorize.
I realize that there are a lot of people who seriously question the wisdom of our having invaded Iraq and many of them have raised legitimate doubts about the venture. But we are now there, like it or no, and we have a tough job to do. If we have an ounce of national pride and any sense of responsibility left, we will stay there until the job is done.
We need to sing along with George M. Cohan's classic World War I war song Over There," which defiantly proclaimed " We'll be over, we're coming over, And we won't come back till it's over, over there."
It's not over, over there.
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact
EtherZone (http://www.etherzone.com/2005/bren082405.shtml)