- The shameless savaging of Cindy Sheehan continues.
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- Bill O'Reilly says she's a tool of "far left elements."
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- The New York Sun echoes the charge, evidently reading
the same rightwing talking points.
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- In an editorial on August 11, it says Sheehan "has
put herself in league with some extreme groups and individuals."
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- This is old-style McCarthyism, straight on down to the
red-baiting.
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- The editorial quotes Sheehan about some of the groups
she's involved with, including Code Pink, Veterans for Peace, and Military
Families Speak Out.
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- It then notes that these groups are on the steering committee
of United for Peace and Justice, along with the Communist Party USA. (A
person representing that party is one of the forty-one members who was
voted onto the steering committee.)
-
- This classic guilt-by-association trope just shows the
reflexive response of the right: When your critic has credibility, and
you can't find anything else on her, destroy her with the old standby:
You're a communist dupe!
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- The Sun also points out that Sheehan is working with
the Crawford Peace House, and it says that group's website "includes
a photo depicting the entire state of Israel as Palestine." Actually,
it depicts a protester holding a sign showing four maps of what is now
Israel and the Occupied Territories, noting how Palestinians have been
allowed less and less land over the past 60 years.
-
- "Nobody is anti-Israel here," says John Wolf,
one of the founders of the Crawford Peace House. "We're just asking
for peace with justice and respect for international law."
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- But for the New York Sun, the Crawford Peace House's
view of the Israel-Palestine conflict is convenient enough to tar Cindy
Sheehan with.
-
- Rightwing talk show host Phil Hendrie goes even lower,
writing an article amazingly entitled "Anti-War Mom: Another Ignorant
Cow," Hendrie called Sheehan a "self-righteous ignoramus,"
and then went into full mockery mode: "A mother grieving her loss.
The inhumanity of war. Oh, the wickedness of it all."
-
- I've seen callousness before, but this piece may top
them all. And catch Hendrie's defense of the Iraq War: "This war was
unavoidable, brought on by an historic clash of culture and ideal, powered
by the American people themselves, rising to meet the future, pissing off
the rag heads." Rag heads?
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- By the way, Hendrie's screed was posted on the website,
freerepublic.com, which calls itself "the premier online gathering
place for independent, grassroots conservatism on the web."
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- Sheehan responds to her critics: "Nothing you can
say can hurt me or make me stop what we are doing. We are working for peace
with justice. We are using peaceful means and the truth to do it."
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- c. 2005 The Progressive - All Rights Reserved
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- http://progressive.org/?q=mag_mc081105
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