Where's Cindy?
Something struck me today and it wasn't a Mack truck. I realized that it's been months, MONTHS, since I've seen or heard from Cindy Sheehan. Just a couple of years ago you couldn't turn on the telly without seeing her smiling face. What a nice lady. She was picketing outside of the entrance to President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch. Or she was excoriating Congress with her anti-war rhetoric. Or she was threatening to run against Diane Feinstein for the Senate because Lady Di wasn't sufficiently anti-war. She was interviewed over and over and over by the broadcast and print media, stating over and over and over that "W" killed her son and that the war was unconstitutional and that we had to leave Iraq, and leave it right now!
And then there was Code Pink. Whatever happened to Code Pink? Medea Benjamin, the Pinko's founder, was chasing Cindy all around America, sputtering out anti-war sound bites at a furious, machine gun pace, each and every one caught on camera by the major networks. You could often find her picketing in front of the U.S. Army recruiting center in beautiful downtown Berkeley. Or leading a peace march down the Capitol Mall. Or getting arrested for her outbursts while Congress was in session. Where are these lovely people now? And why isn't the media continuing to put them on the front page of the newspapers and feature them on the nightly news?
Let's see now. Our new President guaranteed us he'd begin immediate withdrawal from Iraq as soon as he was inaugurated. Ummm. That's like two years ago and we're still there. Oh yeah, the "combat" portion of our military's mission has now been declared over. Funny what you can accomplish by giving an expeditionary force a less bellicose name. And the war in Afghanistan is still humming along, now deep into its ninth year. And it's doing so with about 30,000 more troops than when the Prez took office. Is Cindy or Medea picketing our new President? Are they marching on the White House or leading peace sit-ins at the Capitol? It seems the answer to that question is a big fat "No." Could it possibly be that the only reason that Cindy and Medea and their minions were picketing and fussing and fuming, and the media was gleefully lapping it up, was because there was a Republican inhabiting the White House? Do you have a better answer to that question?
Ah, Chuckmeister, once again you asked a self-answering question. And, no, I don't have a better answer..
ReplyDeleteyou are running down a slippery slope here, bud. as much as i agree with your sentiment, it goes both ways. i have heard rumblings from the tv to my family and coworkers in the last year about the futility of afghanistan. i've been saying that for 9 years, and suddenly, with a democrat in the white house, they agree. deficits were at an all time high in 2008, but it didnt seem until jan 2009 that i heard most conservatives gripe about them.
ReplyDeleteagain, your comment is not without merit. when i protested afghanistan and subsequently iraq from 01-06 (before the baby), i heard many people ask if i was protesting when clinton was in office. turns out, i was. i protested our bombing of iraq in 98, the reemergance of our missile defense lemon program and the death penalty, all things clinton supported. and it was a struggle to get a movement going, one provided a huge shot in the arm when w took office. i knew that shot in the arm was of a partisan nature when i saw madia benjamin arrested at john kerrys convention and then tell reporters she was voting for him anyway.
but, again, it cuts both ways. there are people who care about policy and people who think they do, but really care about party. if you dont believe me, ask yourself how many of those people protesting at tea parties were the same ones yelling at me to get a job when i was standing outside my representatives office in 99 protesting his support of a missile defense shield? the answer of course is ALL of them.
i work much harder speaking to people of a supposed like mind to try to root out the hypocrisy that i see as the single biggest threat to our democracy. i think it dilutes the dialogue to worthless one. may i humbly suggest to you to do the same.. speck of dust in one mans eye, plank in your own and all that...
Let me ask again, folkinhippy, where's Cindy? She was everywhere when "W" inhabited the White House. The Dinosaur Media followed her around with cameras whirring, capturing every little outraged liberal soundbite. Now that BHO is the Prez, the media doesn't seem to care about Cindy, or Madea, or Little Mikey Moore, or Gitmo, or two wars, or dozens of broken campaign-trail promises or just about everything else. Duplicitous? Of course. Predictable? Of course. Reality? Of course...
ReplyDeletewe could go on and on how the left and the right have double standards. if you'd like to go blow for blow on all of the things that most conservatives i know are okay with when a repub do them but cry bloody murder when dems do the same, ill play. neither of us would win and we'd surly go on for years. i find it destructive, for instance that there are republicans who suddenly find it reprehensible for members of congress to avoid taxes and take gifts. moreso, though, it frustrates me there are those on the left who forget they backed a democratic sweep on congress in 2006 because we just had to get all those corrupt republicans outta there.
ReplyDeletewhere is cindy? i dont know. but the iconasation of her and throwing stones at her statue doesnt further the discussion of weather we should be out of these wars or closing gitmo.
when people i typically disagree with tell me they think we should be out of afghanistan, i would never take time out to talk about how they only arrived at that conclusion only when bho came into power. i welcome all opposition to us policy i find toxic. and i sure as hell wish people like cindy sheehan were still opposing these wars, regardless of the president. i truly believe that throwing stones however, is anti-productive and juvenile.
If Cindy and Madea and Mikey Moore and others on the left were still protesting the wars, my point is that you wouldn't know it; the media doesn't report it, and won't. That's because the Dems are running things, at least for now. And therein lay the problem.
ReplyDeleteIf, as many expect, the Repubs take back the Senate and the Presidency in 2012, watch Cindy and Madea and their ilk miraculously reappear. The old media will beat us all over the head with them at every opportunity.
so, it sounds like we agree that the media does not have a left bias, but rather a dem one. it frustrates me that the media is out to lunch on these wars, too (more because i oppose them rather than the double standard). one must wonder how much bigger a story the actual content of these wikileaks would have been under a mccain administration.
ReplyDelete