essaysfromtheedge

The Village Idiot

You've heard the story:

America's Mother Superior Sheehan gets invited to the Capital by Rep Lynn Woolsey for the President's State of The Union Address. She shows up in a protest t-shirt and is promptly hustled out by House Security. Her detainment lasts for the duration of the President's speech.

Cindy was so aghast that House Security would not let her sit in the gallery wearing a protest shirt that she wrote an open letter and had it posted on like-minded simpleton Mike Moore's website, under the title, "What Really Happened".

The letter rambles on in a style fitting Oprah, and if you can pull yourself through it you'll come to this little gem:

After I had my personal items inventoried and my fingers printed, a nice Sgt. came in and looked at my shirt and said, "2,245, huh? I just got back from there."

I told him that my son died there. That's when the enormity of my loss hit me. I have lost my son. I have lost my First Amendment rights. I have lost the country that I love. Where did America go? I started crying in pain.

So, The Mama wants us to believe that "the enormity of [her] loss" hadn't hit her until Tuesday night? You mean all the angst and anguish she has been heaping on us for the past five months has been, ah, UNenormous?

Please.



One thing The Mama didn't share in her little heart-twister is that Republican Congressman C.W. "Bill" Young's wife was also tossed from the gallery for wearing a t-shirt supporting the war!

Which pretty much deflates any notion that The Mama was singled out because of her status as an anti-war protester.

Speaking of which, it seems the media and the left have finally had it up to here with Sheehan. So much so, they are beginning to ask, "Has the state of American antiwar protest really come down to Cindy Sheehan?"

Which is a great question, really. Think about it: the 60s anti-war movement had some intellectual heavyweights on its side, as well as widely respected members of the popular media.

Today, all the anti-war movement can muster are a couple of hypocritical hollywood types ("Do As I Say, Not As I Do"), a congressman who has more fingers in the lobby pie that Tom DeLay ("Murky Jack Murtha"), and a doddering mother of questionable intellectual character who is obviously drunk on her own celebrity.

Now, that being said, The mama could have used the State of The Union speech to very quietly make a poignant and powerful point by just sitting in the gallery, looking dignified (if that's possible for her), and knowing that every time George Bush mentioned the Iraq War, gallery cameras would be beaming her image to millions and millions of people all over the world. The contrast would have been glaring, and it's likely Bush would have come out of the evening looking less presidential by virtue of the very juxtaposition between his image and hers.

But The Village Idiot showed up Tuesday night, and snatched away a priceless moment for the antiwar movement.



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posted by Tomás @ 2/02/2006 10:23:00 PM