Well here we are with yet another in a multitude of examples of how hypocritical and ideological much of our mainstream media has become. In this case we have Cindy Sheehan, mother of Army Specialist Casey Sheehan who was killed in Baghdad over a year ago. Cindy has merely taken the next logical step in not only her mourning process, but in the collective process of many military families and officials who have denounced the U.S. invasion of Iraq. With internet access to home helping soldiers communicate an unsavory take on adminstration spin and high ranking members of our military like former Centcom Commander Gen Anthony Zinni and various other Ambassadors, Generals, Commanders etc of a decidedly conservative bent, speaking out on the illogical and destructive foriegn policy of Bush and his handlers, it seems only natural that another aggrieved parent not only speaks out, but fights back.
Ms Sheehan has camped out on the fringes of G.W. Bush’s ranch having the temerity to disrupt our most vacationed leader’s respite from all the cares and burdens he chose to take on. She asks only for a meeting with the man who sent her son to be slaughtered for the chickenhawks decade old agenda that more and more evidence indicates hid itself behind the McGuffin of WMD’s and ties to Bin Laden. He has refused even that. She did meet with him briefly a couple of months after her son’s death as all families of his campaigns victims get to do. He hadn’t even taken the time to learn his name. According to her he acted like he was at party and was disrespectful, called her mom repeatedly and couldn’t imagine what it was like having anyone he knew in her son’s situation.
And yet the party-line hacks at such media outlets as FOX News have chosen to turn this woman into some kind of media whore who dares interrupt her hard working President’s vacation. From the vitriolic rants of the hateful Melanie Morgan to the contradictions of Fred Barnes, once again Bush’s bitches have gotten right to work on making sure America’s focus is not on what their President has done to them, but on what some ungrateful America haters have done to their President. Does it get any less American than constantly and unrepentantly harnessing all the power, editing glamour, half-truths, and outright lies of a vast media outlet, to curtail public criticism of their leaders? Barnes actually had the nerve to call this woman a crackpot. For what? Dissenting. Agree or disagree with her, that’s what she’s doing. Exercising her inalienable rights as a U.S. citizen. Yet more and more we hear the right wingers assailing “liberals,” as their smear campaign that dates back to Newt Gingritch has managed to take a term that was once associated with fundamental American traits like the longing for equality and turn it into a perjoritive curse word. Leave it to The Daily Show to put it into perspective as Jon Stewart showed Barnes crackpot quote right before a clip of a March segment where he sympathizes with the parents of Terry Schiavvo whom he said had, “A strong moral case.”
So the family in mourning whose stance happens to support conservative ideology is long suffering and victimized by media attention, and the one whose stance works against his master’s agenda is a crackpot? A crackpot that Stewart sagely pointed out managed to raise an altar boy, eagle scout, Marine who was willing to die for his country. But maybe some apples do fall far from the tree, right Fred? Don’t have to be Newton to know that. Never can tell with something as unscientifically sound as the theory of gravity. It is after all just that. A theory. Like evolution. (More on that soon). The Right has the high ground now (not the moral one), but if history has taught us anything besides Michael Corleone can kill anyone, it has shown that the pendulum shifts and the time of the selfish pigs eating at the trough of easy, vulgar, quasi journalism will pass. Sentiments will change and standards will rise. When this happens these pieces of garbage that would make Edward R Murrow weep were he alive will fall. And even a creationist (or an opportunist media or political hack pretending to be one), will put some stock in the old adage, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
My greatest fear is that things go so far that it will take utter catastrophe and complete destruction of all we hold dear before the inevitable happens. My greatest hope is that America has enough voices of dissent and information, and too many bulwarks of democracy in place to let it get that far before the we get a hold of ourselves.
For more on Sheehan including her own contributions visit . It’s one of my most visited blogs.
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