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Commentary - Aug 18, 2005 - Printable Version
- Is Cindy Sheehan Being Used.....by the Bush Administration?
by Mark Faulk
Instead of having Bush give in to Cindy Sheehan’s demands (appear weak.....never!), Karl Rove and his cronies....once again....sent out "the word": trash Sheehan. Plame her. Kill the messenger (hell, we've already killed her son). Lately, I've had a hard time getting a grasp on the current state of affairs in our country. Since the so-called "mainstream media" has turned into nothing more than shills for the Far Right, I have come to rely heavily on the internet to find out what's going on in America. For some reason, the past couple of weeks, it's been difficult to find anything to grab hold of. All of the real issues, or at least the ones that we as Americans can actually do something about, seem to have faded into the background.
The Karl Rove/Valerie Plame scandal.....last week's news. The questions surrounding the London bombings and the shooting of the innocent man that followed.....all over the internet for a few days, then, nothing. Even the blatant price gouging at the gas pumps, fully subsidized by the Bush Administration and Congress, has been reduced to nothing more than a few passing "damn, that sucks, but what-are-ya-gonna-do?" headlines. The Energy Bill, so chock full of giveaways for big oil and "friends of Washington" that it might very well be the nail in the coffin of our already gasping economy? Hardly a blip on the radar screen. John Bolton approved as Ambassador to the U.N. while Congress was on vacation? A few people shaking their heads in disbelief, and then nothing. No massive public....or media....outrage at the Bushies for turning the Constitution into little more than toilet paper, and used toilet paper at that.
Then something occurred to me.....there's a simple reason that all of those issues (and more) have been pushed into the background, and we fell for it, lock, stock, and barrel. Oh, we all think we're smarter than the Bush Administration, that we've figured out their dirty little tricks, that we....the Blogger Nation....won't fall for the diversionary tactics that the Corporate Media has been spoonfed like so much pablum. Hell, we told you the Faulking Truth about that way back in January ("Oooooh, Look at the Pretty Girl!").
But fall for it we did. They found another diversion, one that we signed on to. They gave us Cindy Sheehan, the mother whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, and who has become the catalyst for recent worldwide anti-war protests. Now don't get me wrong here. I believe that Cindy has done more to galvanize the Peace Movement than any other single person in this century. I believe that her efforts are sincere, and no one can argue with the results: worldwide protests against the war in Iraq and mass coverage from both the major media and the internet.
But while this administration might very well be the most uncaring, corrupt group of power brokers in the history of our country, they are brilliant in their methods of deception and diversion. While the rest of us were smugly shaking our heads about Bush's refusal to meet with Sheehan, which might have diffused the situation before it grew into a national feeding frenzy, I believe that the Master of Misdirection himself was once again playing us like so many cheap violins.
Instead of having Bush give in to Cindy's demands (appear weak.....never!), Karl Rove and his cronies....once again....sent out "the word": trash Sheehan. Call out the Right Wing National Guard, from Drudge and Scarborough to Limbaugh and O'Reilly. Plame her. Kill the messenger (hell, we've already killed her son). As long as "The Left" is busy rallying around Cindy Sheehan, defending her, holding her out as their spokesperson for "The Cause", then they won't be talking about "all of the above" (Plame/Rove/Bolton/London/gas prices/oil companies/energy bills....and on and on, ad nauseam). Hell, we'll sneak John Roberts onto the Supreme Court and confirm Chris Cox as Chairman of the SEC while they're busy waving around hand-painted signs and singing "Give Peace a Chance." Make the best of a bad situation, turn their own weapons on the Sixties radical hippie bastards. Call her a pawn of the radical left, parade out a bunch of anonymous faces (ala' Swift Boat) to impugn her character. Do the unthinkable: attack the mother of a fallen soldier.
They used her, just as they've used and abused every person who has tried to "do the right thing", to "speak out against the madness."
Last night, at the urging of one of her avid supporters (who happens to be an avid supporter of ours as well), I sent Cindy Sheehan an email, asking her several questions about her efforts, about why she did it, how the overwhelming response to her crusade made her feel, and about whether she believed that her son Casey would support her efforts if he were here today. I closed with two questions.
The first one was "How long do you intend to keep up your vigil in Crawford, and what do you hope to ultimately accomplish there, aside from the obvious attention you have already brought to the anti-war efforts?" That one was answered today, as she left "Camp Casey" to be at her mother's side, who suffered a stroke earlier in the day. Although she asked her supporters to continue their crusade until she is able to return, for now at least, her vigil has turned from efforts against the war to her mother's bedside.
The last question was this: "If you could ask Bush only one question directly to his face, and he would answer you honestly, what would it be?" We may never know the answer to that question, and she'll probably never have the opportunity to ask her question directly to Bush. I'm guessing that if she did have that chance to speak face-to-face with the man who sent her son off to die in a war that the majority of our country no longer believes in, that a simple "Why?" would say it all for millions of Americans.
Finally, this is the last sentence in my email to Cindy Sheehan. Whether in Crawford standing against an entire Administration in the name of peace, or at her mother's bedside, she has earned her time in the spotlight, and we're a better country for it.....
"Cindy, thank you for your efforts. Every movement has its catalyst, its spark. You are the Iraqi Peace Movement's Rosa Parks....our spark, and your courage will be remembered for many years to come."
And that's the Faulking Truth.
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