I received an email this morning from Colonel JP Cook, USMC, who wrote to let me know that his attempts to get a letter to Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson, who on August 10 penned a poetic—and remarkably dishonest—paean to grieving antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan (“Cindy Sheehan Just Wants to See Her President,”), have been unsuccessful. I reprint the text of the Colonel’s letter below:
Dear Ms. Carlson,
In reference to your recent column for Bloomberg; Why don’t you spend a few months in Iraq as I have and rub shoulders with the people who have been butchered by a brutal dictator that harbored terrorists and used WMD on his own people… think about all the widows in Iraq, all the children with father’s beheaded by terrorists, all the women that were murdered just because they were women, and the women still living that now have a chance at a voice in a new democratic government. What have we done in Iraq?? We have given people hope. And when they have hope.. they begin to dream.. and dreams become reality.
People are finally free in Iraq. And a free Iraq means a safer America because those that wish to oppress can no longer spread their poison into the minds of potential terrorists. Democracy is spreading in the Middle East and it is scaring the hell out of those that have opposed it for hundreds of years, because that means that the funding for their corrupt clerics and their terrorist friends will finally dry up.
You need to expand your mind and come to grips with the reality that there are people out there who want to kill you and every other American they can get their hands on. Whether you believe it or not, it is reality.
What is the price of freedom? It is the blood of men and women better than people like yourself who sit in your columnistic palaces and puff out your nonsense with no clue about the way things really are. I have attached a picture [below the fold] of the hope of Iraq… just for you. Now doesn’t the plight of poor little sunburned Cindy Sheehan pale in comparison to the destitute Iraqi widow and her young daughter struggling to survive in a land scorched by the sun and brutalized by terrorists who don’t give a damn about women’s rights?? Wake up and get out and do something useful before you find an airplane flying into your “climate-controlled” office building. Ever been shot at???? Ever seen evil?? Ever known what it means to make a personal sacrifice??? Spare us the dribble and do something productive like find an alternate source of oil so we can stop the American dependence on foreign energy. Stop whining and start contributing so we can get the job done faster and bring our troops home for good. If we don’t stop it now, we’ll be right back over here in another five years. You can bet your winter
heating oil on it.Along a much hotter and dustier road in the Middle East.
semper fi,
John P. Crook
Colonel USMCp.s. I’m sure you are driving a gasoline-using--foreign-oil-consuming-climate-controlled vehicle yourself.... are you not???
Evidently it’s not just fighting keyboard warriors and rightwing smear merchants who take issue with Ms Sheehan’s message—and with those who propagandize on its behalf.
****
update: Joe Gandelman weighs in:
[…] the rapidity of conservative response to Bush problems has been impressive. But it could prove a net NEGATIVE to right and steadfast war supporters.
The vehemence of the criticism aimed at Sheehan (who, as you can see is no political shrinking violent) is bound to have a backlash in some quarters. Why? Because this kind of massive effort in going after someone who takes on the administration has happened many times before. Rightfully or wrongfully, the image that’s coming across is that if you cross the administration, whether you deserve it or not, you could get nailed to the cross. And that’s the danger: Sheehan’s foes are giving her the image of a martyr.
In the days before the internet and alternative media, Gandelman may well have been right. But times have changed, and so PR strategies have to change with them.
The left’s attempt to turn Sheehan into a martyr should not—NOT—be met with anything less than a barrage of accurate counterfactuals, including the constant publication and dissemination of her writings, speeches, etc., as well as a dispassionate and straightforward analysis of her attendants, handlers, and the rhetorical strategies they have adopted to push her narrative.
In the bygone days of a more homogenized, 3-network / local newspaper media, fighting back against the consistent presentation of Ms Sheehan as a grieving mother ignored by a President and left to bake on a dusty road in Texas would have been difficult to pull off—particularly because the counter-protests would have been framed by the same complicit media that was bent on making the President squirm to begin with. More than likely, the protesters would have been presented as super-patriotic rednecks and evangelical Christians, and the presence of Michael Gallagher, who just may be the dumbest, most hamfisted Republican booster on the national scene, would have reduced the whole pushback to a spectacle bathed in flag-waving pathos.
But with the internet, search engines, and an array of facts at our fingertips, it would be crazy NOT to tell the truth about Ms Sheehan, who, her writings and speeches suggest, is a hardcore conspiracy theorist; and the publicization of her words will help push back against her undeniable prima facie emotional appeal. Because though clearly one can sympathize with her loss, one need not therefore be bullied by it—which is the implicit demand being made by those on left who are championing CINDY’s cause.
The immediate backlash against Bush might be rough, as the MSM gets the visual jump and portrays Sheehan as a woman who “just wants to ask some questions.” But when people go to their ancillary sources to fill in the details and background—as more and more do these days—it would be a crime against history not to detail—clearly, dispassionately, logically, and without shrinking from increasingly shrill suggestions that such investigations are cruel and off-limits—precisely those groups and mechanisms at work behind the scenes keeping this story in the media forefront.
Amen and also, Col. Cook? Thank you, thank you for your service, sir.
CHICKENLETTERPUBLISHER!
The immediate backlash against Bush might be rough, as the MSM gets the visual and portrays Sheehan as a woman who “just wants to ask some questions.â€Â
Since the MSM fails dismally at providing context and background they open the door for alternate venues to do the same. By portraying Sheehan as a woman who “just wants to ask some questions†the MSM further diminishes its own already tarnished credibility.
Well, it looks like Mother Sheehan (retch) and I may have something in common: I just want to answer some questions! Lets see if they match.
1) yes
2) a bullwhip
3) 42
4) Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with a candle stick.
Thanks. It’s kind of a life-long dream.
BECAUSE OF THE HIPOCRISY!
I believe Joe Gandelman meant to say Sheehan was no “shrinking violet†(not “violentâ€Â) but I can believe she may very well be a “Shrieking Violetâ€Â.
Is Sheehan the 40-ish woman who finds herself in the midst of a movement who decides that she wants to be part of the movement and then proceeds to go way overboard with invective because she suddenyl feels alive? I am thinking of her nutty remarks about Israel.
Or is she somewhat like a Chauncey Gardiner? A salad shooter of anti-war propaganda?
It’s the echo-chamber effect. If you are anti-Bush, anti-Iraqi Freedom, anti-conservative, then you are licking this stuff up. It is a grieving mother “speaking truth to power”.
I watch Washington Journal on C-SPAN on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The callers from the “Democrat” phone line always repeat THE SAME sound bites: Bush lied about WMD; We are losing the war in Iraq; Saddam had no ties to AQ or other terrorist organizations; If you support the war, why don’t you sign up to fight in it; blah blah blah.
One older lady called up and started spewing about John Roberts supported violence against women (re the now withdrawn NARAL attack ad).
Conservative blogs may counter the liberal MSM propaganda machine with facts and reason, but all you’re doing is preaching to the quire.
Why do they HATE Bush so vehemently? I’m not sure.
Maybe it’s because he talks with a Texas twang, wears a cowboy hat, and is therefore a red-neck, the epitome of white patriarchy. He is “an oil man” and comes from a wealthy family, and is therefore an evil capitalist. He’s not a particularly good public speaker, speaks in simple terms, and doesn’t see things in a very nuanced way, and is therefore simple, a bumpkin.
It’s frustrating talking to someone who’s been drinking the Democrat Hateraide.
This started out as a no win situation for anyone opposing Cindy Sheehan, since she commands an archtyptical image, the grieving mother. Therefore, direct attacks on her (counter protests) are completely counter-productive.
What will work, though it takes time and requires the willingness to absorb the initial punishment, is to let her speak. This means not only to let her speak but to draw her out (using good interrogation/interview techniques). The more she talks the less convincing she sounds and the more she separates herself from the archtype she is trying to embrace.
What most people who disagree with her do not see is Sheehan is the only person who can tear down her iconic image and left to her own increasingly radical pronouncements, she will do just that. It she was relatively quiet and on point she would be unassailable, but she is not. The image is tarnishing and she has already begun overreaching in ways that she cannot hide from.
The best course of action is to encourage her to talk and record her responses for everyone to see and just make the record public. It speaks powerfully for itself, demonstrating her own manipulation of her initially sympathetic icon. Honest grief and righteous pain are powerful images, but Cindy Sheehan has already made them a lie and all that is needed is to encourage her to speak out to see it.
Why.. you.. you.. CHICKENCOLONEL!!!
DON’T YOU KNOW MOTHER SHEEHAN IS UNASSAILABLE???!!!
I agree with William M.. Cindy Sheehan and her supporters, including but not restricted to David Duke, Cynthia McKinney, convicted terror supporter Lynne Stewart, should be allowed to speak for as long as they please. Their anti-democracy, pro-Intifada, “anti war” views should be broadcast into every home in America.
How ‘bout another musical tribute to Mother Sheehan? Come Monday by Jimmy Buffet or Bewitched by Frank Sinatra could provide fertile ground on which to let the imagination run wiiiild.
CHICKENCOLONEL!!
Colonel Sanders, even.
The left has made it clear that they will exploit ever opportunity to encourage those who would destroy civilization. I say it’s time to recognize that we are in a war and that we don’t have the luxury to be sensitive.
Cindy Sheehan brought Israel into this issue by saying that we are in Iraq to protect Israel and by inferring that the Jewish state has no right to exist.
There are Americans, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, who have lost loved ones to terror in Israel. It would be interesting to hear Sheehan’s response should one of them stop by her tent down in Crawford.
able danger and 9-11 commission’s political side how (Clinton’s lawyer is the only counsel for this phony commission)is the real story. cindy sheehan is spitting on her son’s grave through her antiwar michael moore soundbites and cindy is the face of the democratic party for what they stand for and who they are.