Frank Rich: The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan

[understandinglife]

The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan

By FRANK RICH

August 20, 2005

CINDY SHEEHAN couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there's a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had "other priorities" during Vietnam.

The most prominent smear victims have been Bush political opponents with heroic Vietnam résumés: John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry. But the list of past targets stretches from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke to Specialist Thomas Wilson, the grunt who publicly challenged Donald Rumsfeld about inadequately armored vehicles last December. The assault on the whistle-blower Joseph Wilson - the diplomat described by the first President Bush as "courageous" and "a true American hero" for confronting Saddam to save American hostages in 1991 - was so toxic it may yet send its perpetrators to jail.

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THIS summer in Crawford, the White House went to this playbook once too often. When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war's critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.

Link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/opinion/21rich.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1124596986-U4aCUQmt7olgJh1qdeR8ZA&pagewanted=print

Thursday night, Krugman.

Friday night, Dowd.

Saturday night, Rich.

The truth ... three nights in a row from the NY Times.

Wonders never cease .... mainly because Cindy Sheehan has taught the nation the power of one citizen willing to speak the truth, over and over and over again.


Peace.

[norml]

1. Recommended

Great stuff!

[Bumblebee]

2. Coming from these three, these are not really wonders :)

It would be wonders if it was Friedman or Brooks but they are conveniently on vacation...

[applegrove]

3. Excellent point. This is what Cindy is. The truth about war and that

it cannot be a valid war without everyone sacrificing. And it also cannot be won that way.

Truer words have not been spoken than Rich's:

" The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired".

Only adolescents would fight a war that way. That is not how adults fight.

[understandinglife]

4. "The wheels have been coming off the right wing noise machine lately."

Shoe, meet other foot

by DCMediaGirl

August 20, 2005

The wheels have been coming off the right wing noise machine lately. Enraged and embarrassed by their inability to turn public opinion their way during the wretched Terri Schiavo debacle, over the past several weeks they've focused their pent-up ire on anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan.

The minions of the right have worked hard to discredit Cindy.

<clip>

Why haven't I heard one person accuse any of the pro-war parents of being controlled by extreme right wing forces? After all, didn't the right infantilize Cindy Sheehan by accusing her of being a stooge and puppet of "extremist" left wing interests?

I'll take a wild guess. The chances of any of the above happening is hovering around zero, because we on the left actually sympathize with these parents and care about their grief. We're heartbroken at the loss of so many young people in a war started under false pretenses. I would be ashamed to be associated with any group that would attack grieving parents for their personal political beliefs. Would that the other side would feel the same way.

More, including interesting comments, at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clara-frenk/shoe-meet-other-foot_b_5964.html

Yes, those of us supporting Ms Sheehan actually care about life.

Those against her prove how little they actually care about life every day -- they support wars of aggression; torture; killing of innocents and placing our wonderful, honorable soldiers in harms way for oil, power and avarice.


Peace.

[applegrove]

5. Every nuance is supposed to go their way. Everything in their sorry

little GOP lives must be just so. No taxes - kids in private school, no responsibility or connection to people less fortunate than them, and on and on and on.

They wanted to live in a fantasy build around their own narcissistic needs. And hell - if the troops of sociopaths were not attracted to such hubris and adolescence. Now they have each other. But they don't own reality anymore.

Reality belongs to the adults again. Open discussions. Democracy in action.

[oasis]

6. Bush and his attack dogs will redouble their efforts. There's no other way

for them.

[understandinglife]

7. "All this, so that Iran's allies could become stronger."

Now, for a bit of necessary context of just how reckless the actions of Bush and the neoconsters have been ... unless, of course, they intend more than just guarding detention centers with that battalion of the 82nd Airborne (and all the other military strike assets they have created in Iraq in the past two years).

A couple thousand dead American soldiers. Thousands and thousands wounded. Somewhere between 25K and 100K Iraqis dead.

$300 billion wasted. So far.

Lies. Torture. Vote manipulation. A declining image with the rest of the world.

No end in sight.

<clip>

But as much as I objected to the war, even I could not imagine that the Bush Administration was setting out on a war plan that would end up making Iran so much stronger.

From Baja Iran by Steve Cobble on August 20, 2005

Link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-cobble/baja-iran_b_5961.html

Interestingly, the first comment to Mr Cobble's post:

Mr. C

You're not looking at the BIG PICTURE. It only looks like we are making a mirror image of Iran at this moment in time.

Wait until we invade Iran! O.K.

Kristol,Cheney and Krauthammer would inform you that,"You're seeing the glass half empty when it's really half full."

Posted by: send in the bush twins on August 20, 2005 at 06:27PM

While 'send in the bush twins' might have been attempting :sarcasm: -- we all need to do everything we can to halt these neoconster war criminals, NOW.

That is why Cindy Sheehan's message is so important, and why Rove and his propagandists are working over time to smear her.


Peace.[/b[

[txindy]

8. This is a great piece

I can only agree: "When Mr. Bush's motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far."

And the reason for all of the anger we've been experiencing in the country, lately: "...this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq."

Frank hit a grand slam with this piece.

Adding: Recommendation #5 just entered! :hi:

[steve2470]

9. kick nt

[understandinglife]

10. Larry Johnson: "That all Americans are not up in arms over the ...

... recklessness of George Bush should."

The clueless right wing is up in arms over the momentum of the Cindy Sheehan anti-war movement. There appears no depth they will not plumb, nor mudpit they will not enter in their effort to smear a mother who gave her son in service to our country. I cannot award a Chutzpah prize because there are too many deserving schmucks.

<clip>

If her son had died during an operation to kill Bin Laden than Cindy would at least have the peace of mind to know that her son died trying to make America safer. Instead, her son died in Iraq in an operation whose rationale still remains unclear. But we now know for certain that at least one of the President's claims, i.e., that we are "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here", is no longer true. Instead of a safer America the President has made America at greater risk of a terrorist attack by the Islamic extremists who struck our shores almost four years ago. Since 9-11 the number of international terrorist attacks have soared to unprecedented levels. Last year, for example, there were almost 700 separate terrorist attacks in which someone was killed or wounded. This marks the highest level of terrorist activity since data was first recorded in 1968.

So, as of today, Cindy Sheehan's son is dead along with the sons and daughter of almost 1900 other families. The insurgency in Iraq is growing in strength and level of international terrorism is growing. That Cindy Sheehan is angry should not surprise us. That all Americans are not up in arms over the recklessness of George Bush should.

From THE RIGHT WING BULLY BOYS vs. MOM by Larry C. Johnson on August 16, 2005

Link, including comments:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/the_right_wing_.html

I thought it only appropriate to acknowledge Larry Johnson's comments seeing as how he posted them earlier this week and they do complement Frank Rich's.


Peace.

[flyarm]

15. no one says it better than larry johnson, and frank rich!!

thanks for the two articles ul!!

fly:hi: :thumbsup: :hug:

[oasis]

18. Excellent piece.

[ignatius 2]

11. Dowd,Krugman and Rich have been good progressives all

along,go back and read some of their op-eds and see for yourself.

Having said that, it is a beautiful thing to see them becoming even bolder in their comments about the wee cowboy.

[understandinglife]

12. Yes, I've read their essays for years. The comment was to reflect ...

...on the reality that on three consecutive evenings they each posted blistering attacks on Bush and the neoconsters on the pages of the same 'old grey lady' that Judith Miller soiled with the blood and flesh of our soldiers and currently undocumented, but likely very large numbers, of innocent Iraqi citizens.

Thank you for your comments.


Peace.

[ignatius 2]

13. Well,I suppose we can hope that the NY Times is trying to

"atone" for Millers hand in the Iraq war. Whether it is that or just jumping on the bandwagon because the publics approval of Bushco is waning I don't know, but I am loving it!!

[understandinglife]

16. I'm "loving it" as well!! Thank you. At this point, let's get'um all ...

... on the bandwagon as fast as possible.

Too many more wonderful people will die or be dismembered or tortured by Bush and the neoconsters, if we don't prevail.


Peace.

[bleever]

14. Six months ago, we could only have dreamed of a piece this honest

and searing.

Six months from total despair at the utterly comatose state of the American corporate media, to flashes of awareness and even active intelligence that suggest a reawakening.

I'm not sure why I'm choosing February as a reference point; maybe because that was when I realized that no one, but no one (with the exception of Keith Olbermann) was going to go anywhere near the theft of the presidential election.

Now, the spell is broken. "But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq."


Hallelujah.

[understandinglife]

17. "But this WH no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home"!!

Yes, my friend, that sentence was magical and, even more importantly, correct.

We can prevail. We just need to do it.


Peace.

[Historic NY]

19. Sent a copy to my Repuke friends to spoil their breakfast.....

another story to wear them down.

[Al-CIAda]

20. .

[DemReadingDU]

21. Where is Molly Ivins?

Haven't seen anything for a few weeks, and she's always so criticial of Bush. She'd be right there with Krugman, Dowd & Rich.

[oasis]

22. kick

[kentuck]

23. So, is he calling us insurgents ??

Interesting.

[Rose Siding]

24. He righteously nails George for his sadistic "joke"

As Ms. Zappala noted with rage, her son's death came only a few weeks after Mr. Bush regaled the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association banquet in Washington with a scripted comedy routine featuring photos of him pretending to look for W.M.D.'s in the Oval Office. "We'd like to know if he still finds humor in the fabrications that justified the war that killed my son," Ms. Zappala wrote. (Perhaps so: surely it was a joke that one of the emissaries Mr. Bush sent to Cindy Sheehan in Crawford was Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser who took responsibility for allowing the 16 errant words about doomsday uranium into the president's prewar State of the Union speech.)

At the time Bush got off scott free with that one- too many in the press found it "funny" :(