It's the phenomenon of cable TV news media-mob short-attention-span blanket coverage of issues, propelling individuals into their Warhol 15 minutes, during which they start to feel they are cogent commentators on anything and everything, Hollywood star-like.

In a couple weeks, the media will be off to another missing babe, celebrity trial, or whatever, and years from now, when Bush is out of office and the U.S. is out of Iraq, the IRS will eventually send Sheehan's tax case to the prosecutors, and she'll be amazed that her media pals don't care anymore, and President Hillary couldn't give a crap either.

The Jooooooooooooooos!

I am a Jew who is angry about this. The world wants to keep blaming us for its problems.

There are times that I wish Hitler had killed all of us (Jews, that is)...then the world would have to find someone else to blame.

Come on, no one brainwashed her: Scratch a leftie hard enough, uncover a raging anti semite.

What i wd like to know is who brain washed 80% of the jews who vote Democrat and tacitly support the Cindy Sheehans and her political ideas?

Some of the most ridiculous moonbattery i have heard uttered is out of the mouths of my jewish relatives - some of whom might ever agree with this evil bitch.

What Pard said, but also: What about the media who provide her with a forum? Do they agree with her rantings or do they only hate President Bush? I saw a street person downtown yesterday who I am sure would be very happy to put on the same show for them.

P.S. Yahoo reports that her husband has filed for divorce. No details. There are things happening with that family that we do not know about.

Stephen, I think you're being too kind. She's a long time political hack who has finally found a fawning media and leftist supporters (and funding). I have sympathy for everyone else in that family, but not her. She has taken her grief as license to beat everyone with whom she disagrees. And no one of substance should give her a pass.

I personally don't care about her views. Her views on the war can change, or stay the same. That's all her rights. But since she's only met the president once, and there are two different versions of that same meeting, then I have to question who put her up to this. It's like a freind of mine in college, who broke up with the prettiest girl in school. After the breakup he said she was ugly. He was wrong then and she's wrong now by changing her characterization of the meeting. Either he wa nice, or he was'nt.

Bill Kristol might be right in that Sheehan is hurting, or will end up hurting, the Left she has sold her soul to far more than the right that she despises more than fascism (the real thing, not fantasy) itself.

That 'Israel out of Palestine' is such the tell. Anyone notice that she is screaming (yes, screaming) it at the very moment that Sharon is excruciatingly evacuating the Gaza? For Sheehan and Co, this fact doesn't even pop up on the radar screen.

Not to mention the fact that Israel and Palestine have exactly WHAT to do with the honorable death of her son? Ooooh, right, it's the Joooos around Bush that are at fault, just like the Morganthau's and Rothschild's whispering evil policies into Franklin Roosevelts ear in 1939-1942. Would have been peace in Europe were it not for those "Jewish bastards", etc.

This is your Grrl, Left and Air America, et al? Is it?

Yeah, you go with that.... AGAIN!

Remember, she not only wants Jews out of Gaza and West Bank. She wants ALL Jews out of Middle East and into the sea. That's really no different than what most of the Jihadists wants.

I may be wrong on this but I think the issue of the Jews was the result of a question she was asked by some airhead with a microphone. She didnt have a news conference to announce this position.
Granted, she shouldn't be answering questions like that but--again--she shouldn't be asked either. I wish the folks at Camp Casey could report when news is made and just shut up when news isn't made.

WELL IT WASN'T HER HUSBAND. HE JUST DUMPED HER. GO FIGURE...

1) What Ms. Sheehan's husband or family does or does not do is irrelevant. George W's mother is in favor of abortion; so do we condemn him or cast aspirations on him for what his mother does?
2) What Ms. Sheehan says about Palestine is irrelevant. The Lutheran church just condemned Israel for the Wall they built; do we condemn every Lutheran?
3) The woman lost her son. She asked for a meeting with the President. He declined to sit down and listen to her. She is, as he has stated, entitled to her opinions and viewpoints. He does not dispute that, why do some of the readers here disupute that?
4) Our President has time to take a two-hour bike ride and attend expensive fund-raising parties but not spend 20 minutes with the mother of a slain soldier? From a purely PR perspective the whole issue would disappear after that meeting. The press would move on.
5) It would not be a bad idea for the President to meet with every family of every American who was killed in Iraq and explain to them personally why their child/spouse/sibling was taken from them. Why would that be too much to ask?
6) At that meeting he can explain why the Bush twins nor any of his nieces or nephews have volunteered to go to Iraq. In fact, you don't see many politicians' children in the Armed Services at all. I wonder why that is?
7) When will we wake up and realize the reason we are in Iraq is NOT to bring democracy to people who clearly don't want us there, but to secure oil so that we can drive our increasingly large posteriors around in gas-guzzling SUVs? Talk about Conservatism!

People deal with loss in different ways. Like the founders of MADD, Ms. Sheehan has thrown herself into her causes.

Her living children back in California deserve better than her media circus.

Hey Luke, that was tongue in cheek right? You can't actually believe everything you said there. BTW: She has already met the President, she came away with quite a different story back then. Do a google search and inform yourself a little.

Bravo Luke.

"she came away with quite a different story back then"

People are allowed to change their minds, you know. WMDS turned into 9/11 turned into freedom for Iraqi's.

Again, google speeches before the invasion. Come back and tell me how many of those never mentioned freedom for Iraqis. I think you'll find the number exactly zero.

Also Luke's statement was about the President never meeting her which is of course is also not true.

Vince, it's not so much that Sheehan changed her mind; of course she is "allowed" to do that. The point is that the president already met with her once. Luke is acting as though he can't spare "twenty minutes" to do so, when he already has. What does she want to say to him now that is different? If he meets with her now, and she comes to the White House two months from now demanding another meeting, will that be a reasonable request? How many times must he meet with her before his opposition will say that it is reasonable to stop acceding to the requests, or must he meet with her whenever and wherever she likes, as many times as she wants him to?

Luke,

"5) It would not be a bad idea for the President to meet with every family of every American who was killed in Iraq and explain to them personally why their child/spouse/sibling was taken from them. Why would that be too much to ask?"

It isn't too much to ask, within time constraints. There's an article in Newsweek now detailing how he does this, and the stories of a few of the families that he has met with.

"6) At that meeting he can explain why the Bush twins nor any of his nieces or nephews have volunteered to go to Iraq. In fact, you don't see many politicians' children in the Armed Services at all. I wonder why that is?"

I think you would have to ask the young people who have not volunteered why they have chosen a different path in life... their parents are not responsible for the choices they make, nor can their parents force them into a life that they do not choose for themselves. I doubt Cindy Sheehan could force her son to go into the military or to stay home, either- this is the choice of the individual, not of their family or their government.

2) What Ms. Sheehan says about Palestine is irrelevant. The Lutheran church just condemned Israel for the Wall they built; do we condemn every Lutheran?

FYI, there is no "The Lutheran Church". There are several assorted denominations that go under "Lutheran", and if all of them agreed on this one thing, THAT'd be a miracle.

Why their spouse/child/sibling was "taken" from them?

Taken?

Didn't her son re-up?

Didn't she ask him?

I believe a prerequisite of brainwashing is for the subject to actually have a brain. To date, I've seen no convincing evidence that Sheehan has one.

Why do Jews still vote for Dems? Because some of us believe that while some fringe Dems hate us, the GOPs in power want to convert us.

I mean, the president once said that Jews can't go to heaven.

Forgive me for not trusting a man who may think I am enternally damned for reading prayers from right to left on Saturdays.

To Steve: Uproarious applause on the post.

I am not blaming Ms. Sheehan, although I do feel considerably less inclined to give her as much leeway as before she started blaming Jews for her son's death.

If otherwise non-grief sticken individuals such as Luke can believe what he wrote above, then she can be given a little slack in her condition.

It's like two kids being instigated into a fight by others standing around continually urging the, possibly less than willing, participants to escalate and finally engage. Once engaged it's not hard to totally lose control and do or say alot of things they later might have reason to regret.

Unfortunately in this case, Ms. Sheehan will not be able to repair the relations with the family she seems to be alienating. After all is said and done, the "kids" urging her on will move on to another political tool leaving her without a son and a family for consolation.

Mrs. Sheehan is full of shit, but let's not pretend the security of Israel and avoiding a conflagration in the Middle East weren't considerations here.

I'm uncomfortable with giving Israel a free pass on this one. Someday we need to decide how much we are willing to give to prevent Israel from defending their own interests. It's almost like we don't trust them to defend themselves in a fashion that would not escalate into a full-blown world war.

Saddam was never more than a marginal threat to us, but he was a loose cannon in a ship full of powder. He had to go. But let's not pretend it wasn't Israel wearing the bullseye here.

(The other) Chuck wrote:
"Why do Jews still vote for Dems? Because some of us believe that while some fringe Dems hate us, the GOPs in power want to convert us.

I mean, the president once said that Jews can't go to heaven."

Well, if the president is correct, he is trying to tell you how to get to heaven. If you are correct, then you know he's incorrect, so why would you care what he thinks?

Until there are calls for mandatory conversion, I would think that your greater concern should be the not-so-fringe democrats.

This poor woman is reminiscent of the grieving families of dead Vietnam war soldiers whom Kerry interviewed for his book and who later complained that he exploited their grief for partisan politics. Some returning soldiers were even so unhinged that they lied about atrocities and later recanted, but the damage was done.

She did.

Spongeworthy,

Saddam cared about the Palestinians as about much as do the Saudis or any other arab country that insisted on keeping the Palestinian people in isolation within their own lands.

Ultimately it's not about Israel. If there was no Israel it would be about our support of Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or our tacit approval of what's going on in Chechnya or american oil companies involvment in arab oil fields or (take your pick of any alledged grievence). Israel is nothing more than an excuse or lightning rod sitting right on top of free markets and liberal societies.

Israelis just happened to be the ones who showed everyone that a liberal democracy is actually possible in the ME. What boils people in the ME is that countries with much more in the areas of natural resources and wealth are still backwaters relative to western society's success as manifested by Israel.

Israel has been fighting this war for us for decades. Only recently have we cared enough to actually give them a hand. It's 1941 all over again.

"Until there are calls for mandatory conversion, I would think that your greater concern should be the not-so-fringe democrats."

You mean I should ignore people like James Dobson and Rick Santorum who essentially do that? Damn good thing these people have no power...

It was the cigarette smoking man...

"You mean I should ignore people like James Dobson and Rick Santorum who essentially do that? Damn good thing these people have no power..."

They called for madatory conversion to their brand of religion? I must have missed that. Of course, GW might think I'm not going to heaven because I worship the Whore of Babylon. But, I Don't Care.

(from Wiki, so I owe you some grains of salt):"Liberal critics label Dobson as a fundamentalist, but some fundamentalists are among his severest critics mainly because Dobson works cooperatively with Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians and Jews, and because the organization is politically active."
For Santorum, there is mention about his views on SSM, Homsexuality, and abortion, but nothing about forced conversions to Christianity.

If you want to belong to the party of Cynthia McKinney, it's your choice.

The President once said Jews cannot go to heaven? This is the Internet, folks. I'd like to see a link on that. I don't buy, and beleive it is example number 8,927 of people reacting to what other (agenda-driven) people SAY Bush said, as opposed to what he actually DOES say, here in the real world, the latter being meticulously catalogued on an hourly basis.

Show me the link.

As for Sheehan, I repeat that "Israel out of Palestine" is a tell. She is perfectly allowed to pontificate on Israel, Social Security, whatever she jolly well pleases. But words mean something. WHAT does "Israel out of Palestine" mean? And isn't a bit odd in this context, which ostensibly is a focus on American boys dying unfairly in Iraq? Sharon's actions on this very day add yet another bizarre twist to the statement.

But if she is parroting a point by point agenda of not the Left per se, but the genuine, America- LOATHING Left, "Israel out of Palestine" makes perfect sense, and needs no elaboration or explanation.

And by the way, the "it's all about oil" is SO pathetically 20th century. Marx's ridiculous premise that ALL human activity boils down to economic gain has been discredited every bit as much as, well, creationism, at least. Yet the latter is mocked by so many who hold the former as gospel truth. You are as free to claim "all about oil" as Sheehan is to claim her laundry list of greivances. That doesn't make them even slightly more true.

Marx was a bloviating idiot, completely at sea over what human beings are about and what motivates them to do what they do. Deal with it.

If the United States was starting wars for Israel's benefit, would Saddam really be the first country on the list? I would think Syria and Jordan would be more likely, which would also be easier to sell regarding their connection to terrorism.

Amazing how losing a child made Cindy Sheehan a heroic martyr who had to be listened to, but made the Schiavos too crazy with grief to be taken seriously.

Give it a month and Mother Sheehan will be hunched over a bar somewhere with Berg's old man, wondering why her phone isn't ringing anymore, while the left waves its latest sock puppet around...

Bush should meet with Sheehan as often as she wants. He should place himself completely at her disposal. That is Bush's job now. To listen to Sheehan any time, night and day, to meet with her and let her report the meetings to the media any way she wishes, to change her story at any time to suit herself.

Sheehan is a media star now and has privileges. You must treat her with respect, you all must.

Manchurian Mom...catchy phrase. Wish I had thought of that. I like the farmer with the shotgun the most.

You know, if they would just find that chick in Aruba, media attention on her would drop like a bad habit.

Where's a runaway bride when you need one eh?

I'm not sure she's brainwashed, but I AM sure she's one happy stooge. This incident is but the latest installment of the seemingly endless saga of MSM organizations making headline$ for their bottom line$.

I wouldn't call Mrs, (soon to be "Ms.") Sheehan "brainwashed".

This woman isn't suddenly having any kind of revelation... she was against the war effort before her son was killed, and now she is merely using his death to garner attention to the antiwar effort, but even more sickeningly, she is using her own son's honorable death to gain fame for herself.

Cindy Sheehan has made herself the opposition flavor of the month, and is riding this wave of fame as far as it will take her. No more, no less.

She'd better cash in, while the cashing in is good. With any luck, she will even eventually be able to forgive herself for using her own son's death to attain celebrity (and dollars).

It's not so much that Sheehan changed her opinion since her meeting last year with Bush -- anyone is allowed to do that, even if we don't understand the motives. The problem with Cindy began when she changed her story about what Bush said and did at the meeting from what she had told the Vacaville Record following the 2004 meeting. And the photos of that meeting which recently have been posted on the internet seem to back up her original recounting of the story, not the new version in which Bush is portrayed as both insensative and acting like he was ready to go out and party.

The revision of her meeting was the first dent in Sheehan's credibility, while the other statements that have followed have made her come across as at best misguided and spiteful towards targets that have nothing to do with her son's death. Odds are if her handlers have any political savy, she'll be appearing more as a mere TV image from now on, and her public utterances will be as limited as Harpo Marx, in order to maintain what credibility is left.

Chuck: the president once said that Jews can't go to heaven.

Would you please give a citation?

Anyone who screams like a lunatic is, well...a lunatic.

I can't agree with Luke's statement that the PR issue would just disappear if Bush took 20 min to meet with Cindy Sheehan. Quite the contrary. This is a form of public protest, and if it meets with results it will inspire yet more protests of the same kind.

I also like the snarky comment about Bush having time for a two-hour bike ride but not to meet with Sheehan (again). I, for one, emphatically do not want my country run by someone who does not take time away from the job to recharge his batteries. The insane workaholic atmosphere in D.C. already gives me the willies. (I also suspect that the people who make this arguement about Bush are also people who point to the superiority of the French lifestyle and working hours as superior to ours.)

"'Cause when you're a celebrity
It's adios reality
You can act just like a fool
People think you're cool
Just 'cause you're on TV
I can throw a major fit
When my latte isn't just how I like it
When they say I've gone insane
I'll blame it on the fame
And the pressures that go with
Being a celebrity"-- Brad Paisley

I will have to admit that I skimmed through these comments, but, I had my fill of the so-called grieving mother when I read her own words: http://www.veteransforpeace.org/convention05/sheehan_transcript.htm

Especially when she dishonored her own son: "I said to my son not to go. I said, you know it's wrong, you know you're going over there. You know your unit might have to kill innocent people, you know you might die. And he says, "My buddies are going, I have to go." He said, "If I don't go someone's going to have to do my job, and my buddies will be in danger."

Bear in mind that he had reenlisted. Also that the rest of his family, including his father, though they very much grieve his loss, feel proud of the love he had for this country that his mother did not and does not share.

Sheehan said those words just days, hours really, before Israel began its painful and bloody pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Could you possibly be any less accurate ?

So who brainwashed ABC into saying:
1. She never said these words, they were supposedly in an email.
2. That email wasn't hours before anything, it was sent 6 months ago.
3. The email cannot be produced.
4. The woman denies ever making such a reference.

Come to think of it, starting with who brainwashed you would be more relevant.

Bush is THE brainwasher, inundate with talking points until they can't think for themselves. What comes around, goes around and yeah, she never said it.

So "she denies saying it" automatically is validated as "she never said it"? Interesting trick. How about the her visit to SFSU at a rally for Lynne Stewart at which similiar and even more insane things were said? She's never denied being there - but I guess when she does it'll become "she never said it".

I believe the primary revision Ms. Sheehan made to her story of meeting with Bush was how instead of being courteous and understanding he was a man of faith, what really happened was Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfeld showed up with a cooler full of bags of blood from babies and Casey and ripped them open and smeared the blood on their faces all while chanting "All Hail Israel." Just sayin...

But really, folks, let's really look at this from a psychiatric point of view.

- Ms. Sheehan had been a staunch anti-war protestor prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

- Casey joined the service, and re-upped.

Now what could that tell us about:

- Casey's relationship to his mother

Doesn't it mean anything to you to know that Casey did exactly what his mother hated the most, not once, but TWICE?

Ms. Sheehan knows the truth - she's an incorrugible bitch who drove her son to do the most horrendous thing he could possibly do to hurt her for a life she made him live in hell: join the service and put his life in danger... TWICE.

There are only 2 therapies for Ms. Sheehan - psychiatry, or a rope.

I am sick of Cindy Sheehan and her twisted ideas!...The PLO put there ugly mosque up on top of the Temple that Solomon built!...The Palestinians who supported that are disgusting old goat heads! AND that is putting it nicely!... Casey Sheehan died fighting for freedom and democracy! Many others before him allow us all the freedom and Rights we have today! Cindy Sheehan should be proud of her son. Instead the dignity and honor of his memory is being disturbed by her radical behavior!... Go Home Cindy and grieve in private!...