Thursday, August 18, 2005
JUMPING ON THE "ENOUGH OF CINDY SHEEHAN" BANDWAGON
I'm very sorry for Ms. Sheehan's loss. It's an awful thing to have to lose one's child, and the whole nation grieves with her. She has every right to speak her mind. She has every right to disagree with the President or anyone else on issues of national policy. Blah blah blah. (Insert here all disclaimers and qualifiers necessary to pre-emptively address the predictable non-sequiturs and accusations of insensitivity, though they will undoubtedly rain down upon my being anyway.)
With that taken care of, let me ask: if someone had already publicly declared you a premeditated murderer, a liar, a traitor, a terrorist, a war criminal, a fascist and every other overwrought, hackneyed cliché insult (right about now I can hear those who lack any sense of proportion or perspective rhetorically asking, “but isn’t Bush all of those things?”) and then demanded that you personally confess to these crimes in a private meeting, might you be a bit skeptical of her claim to simply want a constructive dialog seeking answers? Perhaps you too would conclude that her mind is already made up, that she is not seeking answers or a heart-to-heart but rather a confrontation, and that your time is better spent doing something more productive than being lectured by an unhinged crank who hates your guts.
Ms. Sheehan already had her personal meeting with the President. That's more than 295,000,000 other Americans can ever hope for. Despite some claims made by her supporters, the President isn't answerable directly to her. She wasn't entitled to the first meeting but she received it anyway because the President cared enough to meet with her as he has with hundreds of family members of fallen soldiers. Yes, our president is answerable to the people as a whole. However, he is not answerable through a series of personal question-and-answer sessions with individual constituents. No president has or ever will have time for anything like that. That is why our system of accountability occurs through the electoral process; a President is accountable first through elections and then through working with the people's representative body, aka the legislature. A face-to-face meeting with any President is a rare privilege, not a right.
Just what is it that Sheehan expects? Does she think that if she gets her meeting with the President, he's going to say, as she is demanding (direct quote), "tell me that my son died to make your friends rich; tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East"? If she heard that from Bush, would she be satisfied? Would she finally have the answer she is seeking? Would it give her the "closure" she supposedly is after? Does anyone believe she would suddenly drop her "my sacrifice gives me absolute moral authority" posturing, go home and resume a quiet, normal life out of the spotlight?
Sheehan claims she wants answers, and many state we as a nation are entitled to answers from the President. Yes, we certainly are. And those answers have been supplied a hundred thousand times in speeches, press releases, press Q&A sessions, discussions, debates and resolutions. You may not like the answers. You may not believe the answers. You may wish they were more detailed answers. You may want different answers – which some would no doubt use to bludgeon Bush over the head with for "shifting the rationale for war yet again." But that doesn't mean the answers haven't been given. You're not entitled to answers that coincide with the "real" answers you may have manufactured in your mind. Nor are you entitled to answers that can only be supplied by a crystal ball.
Contrary to assertions made in the national dialog, Sheehan is not looking for answers, and neither is anyone else whose minds are already made up. What she and her fellow travelers pretend to want is a confession from Bush of sinister ulterior motives. Since she knows she will never get it, one can only conclude she is looking for publicity.
Well now she's getting it and suddenly she and her cabal don't like it. Her handlers can spin the "grieving mother wilting like flower in the sun" angle all they want. She has made a macabre public spectacle of her grief, and she has therefore invited scrutiny and responses from the very public she has engaged. Some will do so in a fashion that matches her own exceptionally inflammatory and self-marginalizing rhetoric. Vitriol from any quarter is not conducive to a constructive dialog designed to hash out a consensus. Those who answer Sheehan with the same degree of vituperation she has demonstrated toward her targets marginalize themselves as well. But such is the stock Sheehan has chosen to trade in, and I can’t bring myself to pity her when she finds out that slinging mud gets her dirty as well.
Ms. Sheehan, I hope some day you find the solace you’re looking for. Looks like this won't the day.
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I'm very sorry for Ms. Sheehan's loss. It's an awful thing to have to lose one's child, and the whole nation grieves with her. She has every right to speak her mind. She has every right to disagree with the President or anyone else on issues of national policy. Blah blah blah. (Insert here all disclaimers and qualifiers necessary to pre-emptively address the predictable non-sequiturs and accusations of insensitivity, though they will undoubtedly rain down upon my being anyway.)
With that taken care of, let me ask: if someone had already publicly declared you a premeditated murderer, a liar, a traitor, a terrorist, a war criminal, a fascist and every other overwrought, hackneyed cliché insult (right about now I can hear those who lack any sense of proportion or perspective rhetorically asking, “but isn’t Bush all of those things?”) and then demanded that you personally confess to these crimes in a private meeting, might you be a bit skeptical of her claim to simply want a constructive dialog seeking answers? Perhaps you too would conclude that her mind is already made up, that she is not seeking answers or a heart-to-heart but rather a confrontation, and that your time is better spent doing something more productive than being lectured by an unhinged crank who hates your guts.
Ms. Sheehan already had her personal meeting with the President. That's more than 295,000,000 other Americans can ever hope for. Despite some claims made by her supporters, the President isn't answerable directly to her. She wasn't entitled to the first meeting but she received it anyway because the President cared enough to meet with her as he has with hundreds of family members of fallen soldiers. Yes, our president is answerable to the people as a whole. However, he is not answerable through a series of personal question-and-answer sessions with individual constituents. No president has or ever will have time for anything like that. That is why our system of accountability occurs through the electoral process; a President is accountable first through elections and then through working with the people's representative body, aka the legislature. A face-to-face meeting with any President is a rare privilege, not a right.
Just what is it that Sheehan expects? Does she think that if she gets her meeting with the President, he's going to say, as she is demanding (direct quote), "tell me that my son died to make your friends rich; tell me my son died to spread the cancer of Pax Americana, imperialism in the Middle East"? If she heard that from Bush, would she be satisfied? Would she finally have the answer she is seeking? Would it give her the "closure" she supposedly is after? Does anyone believe she would suddenly drop her "my sacrifice gives me absolute moral authority" posturing, go home and resume a quiet, normal life out of the spotlight?
Sheehan claims she wants answers, and many state we as a nation are entitled to answers from the President. Yes, we certainly are. And those answers have been supplied a hundred thousand times in speeches, press releases, press Q&A sessions, discussions, debates and resolutions. You may not like the answers. You may not believe the answers. You may wish they were more detailed answers. You may want different answers – which some would no doubt use to bludgeon Bush over the head with for "shifting the rationale for war yet again." But that doesn't mean the answers haven't been given. You're not entitled to answers that coincide with the "real" answers you may have manufactured in your mind. Nor are you entitled to answers that can only be supplied by a crystal ball.
Contrary to assertions made in the national dialog, Sheehan is not looking for answers, and neither is anyone else whose minds are already made up. What she and her fellow travelers pretend to want is a confession from Bush of sinister ulterior motives. Since she knows she will never get it, one can only conclude she is looking for publicity.
Well now she's getting it and suddenly she and her cabal don't like it. Her handlers can spin the "grieving mother wilting like flower in the sun" angle all they want. She has made a macabre public spectacle of her grief, and she has therefore invited scrutiny and responses from the very public she has engaged. Some will do so in a fashion that matches her own exceptionally inflammatory and self-marginalizing rhetoric. Vitriol from any quarter is not conducive to a constructive dialog designed to hash out a consensus. Those who answer Sheehan with the same degree of vituperation she has demonstrated toward her targets marginalize themselves as well. But such is the stock Sheehan has chosen to trade in, and I can’t bring myself to pity her when she finds out that slinging mud gets her dirty as well.
Ms. Sheehan, I hope some day you find the solace you’re looking for. Looks like this won't the day.
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