The Danger of Sheehan

When Cindy Sheehan first arrived on the scene, I was touched by her story. How could anyone not be? I didn’t particularly think the President should give in and talk to her in Camp Casey-he already had once, after all, and that’s more than most Americans get-but she made a brave stand. Now I just feel sorry for her. And… she worries me.

Why? Bear with me on this comparison: She reminds me of a young Rev. Donald Wildmon of the AFA. Donny got fed up one day in 1970-something when there wasn’t anything good on TV, so he took action. Through some fluke of history, he got a lot of media attention for leading a “turn off your TV for a week” campaign at his local church. He cunningly parlayed that media attention into the billion-dollar pain-in-the-ass empire we see today. (Some people might call that ironic.)

Cindy Sheehan, through some fluke of history, is getting a lot of media attention. She’s leading campaigns that get national and international attention. What empire might she be leading in 30 years?

Now before you panic too much, she does not appear to be nearly as cunning as Rev. Wildmon. She just appears… lost. She wanders aimlessly about the Americas, following any sponsorship set before her, looking for someone to blame for her son’s death. The responsible person seems pretty obvious to me. If you let your son join the Army, you might not see him grow very old. Cold? Unsympathetic? Maybe. But let’s face it: the Army’s not the safest career path one could choose. Even the Reserves.

Mainly, I think she is just looking for more and more media attention. I think, in her own way, she’s trying to do exactly what Rev. Donald Wildmon did: Force an extreme pacifist view on the government and its people so she can fulfill a personal agenda. Unfortunately most of the attention she gets these days is pretty negative. (I mean, seriously, meeting with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez? Are you kidding me?)

P.S. I just read Cindy Sheehan’s blog post, What Really Happened at the State of the Union. Her shock and ignorance that she could be arrested for wearing a protest shirt at the SOTU is… um… ridiculous. Particularly in post-9/11 America, if you’re inside the capitol building with the president, vice-president, congress, senate, supreme court, and a whole bunch of cameras, you better behave or else. Her grievances should not take precedence over the tradition of a government spectacle that goes back hundreds of years. I’m now subtracting a few more points from the pro-Cindy column.

P.P.S. This just in: “The wife of Rep. C.W. Bill Young said she was ejected during President Bush’s State of the Union address for wearing a T-shirt that said, “Support the Troops Defending Our Freedom,” a newspaper reported Wednesday.” So it wasn’t just an anti-Cindy campaign. I also read somewhere (though I can’t put my finger on it now) that others have been ejected from SOTUs of the past, too, for wearing the wrong clothes.

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