This is from a discussion online with Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.
Baltimore, Md.: Do you think its wise for the antiwar movement to rally around someone who has made so many strange comments about the Iraq War being a war for Israel?
Dana Milbank: Certainly it's a risk. And Sheehan has, whatever her current position, taken some highly controversial stands regarding Israel. They key for the antiwar movement is to use Sheehan as a symbol but not to make the movement about her. Last night was an effort to broaden beyond Sheehan to other parents. That's why MoveOn told people to bring pictures of children even if they aren't in the military, and organizers handed out stickers saying 'mom' and 'uncle' and so forth, even if the 'son' or 'nephew' wasn't in Iraq.
The anti-war movement can't even muster enough "real" protesters so they're faking them.
Steve Yuhas notes the media's ongoing search for an anti-war hero is failing as more moms speak out in favor of Iraq.
Now, there is a counter protest to Cindy Sheehan's protest at Crawford, Texas.
What's even more remarkable about the online discussion with Milbank, is it shows the bias of a reporter at the Washington Post.
Take this exchange for example.
Watermill, N.Y.: Why doesn't Bush just meet with her? It would take less than an hour of her time and defuse the situation down there? This seems pretty simple.
Do you think Bush is calculating that a revived anti-war movement will harden his supporters?
Dana Milbank:
No doubt Bush and his aides now wish he had met with her 12 days ago. But to back down at this point would be impossible for Bush, whose display of resolve is a signature attribute.
Milbank doesn't tell her audience that Bush has in fact already met with Sheehan until much further on.
And this:
[Milbank] This may well inspire some of the conservative base, but at the cost of mobilizing the liberal base -- a tradeoff the White House would not make if given the choice. At the rally last night, a fellow from Free Republic spoke about how this is awakening the 'silent majority' -- but it didn't work too well the last time people talked about the silent majority.
Again, Milbank doesn't tell her audience about the counter protests, other moms speaking out in favor of Bush and commercials currently running by moms who support Bush.
Milbank goes on to lament the failed anti-war movement.
[Milbank] Sheehan's story will fade after the Roberts hearings start. But it's possible she has ignited a movement that will continue. Until now, there's been virtually no mass antiwar movement that puts people in the streets. There's a big antiwar protest here in DC I think on Sept. 24. That may be a gauge of where the antiwar movement is.
Read the whole thing.
Mark Steyn weighs in.
Her son’s loss — like Max Cleland’s wounds — is supposed to put her beyond reproach. For as the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd informed us, ‘The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.’
Really? Well, what about those other parents who’ve buried children killed in Iraq? Linda Ryan lost her son, Marine Corporal Marc Ryan, to ‘insurgents’ in Ramadi: ‘George Bush didn’t kill her son,’ says Mrs Ryan. ‘Her son made a decision to join the Armed Forces and defend our country.... George Bush was my son’s commander-in-chief. My son, Marc, totally believed in what he was doing.’
There are, sadly, hundreds of Linda Ryans across American: parents who buried children killed in Iraq and who honour their service to the nation. They don’t make the news. There’s one Cindy Sheehan and she’s on TV round the clock. She may not be emblematic of bereaved military families, but she’s certainly symbolic of media-Left desperation.
That in a nutshell is what this Sheehan nonsense is all about, the left wing dominated media trying desperately to give CPR to the dead anti-war movement.
UPDATE
Here's who's behind the "Sheehan Show".
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment