Good Call By President Bush
September 28, 2005 – 11:40 amCindy Sheehan, the prominent anti-war activist whose son died while stationed in Iraq in 2004, met with Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) yesterday to discuss the Iraq War. After the meeting, Ms. Sheehan had some choice wars for Senator McCain:
“He is a warmonger, and I’m not,” said Sheehan.
I understand Ms. Sheehan’s personal frustration with the war, but calling John McCain, perhaps this country’s most admired and respected living war hero, a “warmonger” is hardly the way to effect change in people’s hearts and minds. If anyone knows of the horror and sacrifice that inevitably accompany war, it is John McCain.
In addition to the name-calling, Ms. Sheehan misled Senator McCain into believing she was accompanying a group of Arizona constituents to the meeting. As it turns out, her congressional liaison was the only member of her small group with ties to Arizona, and he moved away when he went to college.
I think it is perfectly clear now why President Bush chose not to meet with Ms. Sheehan. There was just no way the meeting could have ended positively for either one of them, especially the president. Unfortunately Senator McCain learned that lesson the hard way.
2 Responses to “Good Call By President Bush”
Man, the more I read about this woman, the more I despise her. I realize that she has suffered a terrible trajedy, but her respose to it is pretty much unconscionable.
Whenever I see protesters, I usually find that I’m in the opposite camp, but however much protesters may annoy me, they do have a right to protest. Additionally, civil disobedience is a valid form of protest when it has a chance of accomplishing something, and particularly when it is in protest of unjust civil laws. However, this woman was recently arrested on a misdemeanor during a protest after being warned that she was breaking the law. Rather than continuing her protest that day, she allowed herself to be arrested for the additional attention it would grab. She was smiling for cameras all the way to the jail. I really do feel that the terms “attention whore” and “media whore” are truly applicable. Her act accomplished three things:
1) The people that follow her now think more highly of her. (Not very useful since they were already following her).
2) The people (like me) who already dislike her despise her even more. (Also counterproductive).
3) As a result of her arrest there will most likely be tax dollars wasted on trials, etc.
Every summer back in Oak Ridge people show up at Y-12 (one of the sites where the atomic bomb was developed) to protest on the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. They are even given a specific area where they have plenty of room to protest so that they don’t get in the way of law-abiding, peaceful researchers who work at that facility (Me, for instance. I spent two summers there working in the Fusion Energy Division). Every single year the protesters are told that they are allowed to use the designated protest area, but any attempt to approach the facility (which is federal property) will result in their immediate arrest. Every single year there are about a dozen who think that this doesn’t apply to them. They’re promptly arrested, and the result is thousands of taxpayer dollars that have to be spent on their incarcerations and trials. They sometimes have their names listed in the paper, but never pictures, as I’m sure they’d like.
The thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that they haven’t a clue what they’re protesting about. They have no idea what actually goes on at the Y-12 plant. A simple interview with the protest organizers (occasionally it shows up in the papers) shows that, despite being completely anti-nuclear (both weapons and nuclear power), they haven’t a clue as to the science and engineering (let alone the true risks) behind nuclear energy. A typical middle school student in Oak Ridge tends to know as much as the leaders of these protests.
The same goes for the most recent Sheehan-led anti-war protest. It’s one thing to protest the war, to call for our troops to come home. But the protesters show that they have no concept of how things really work. Almost all of them have signs calling for an immediate withdrawal of troops. It’s not going to happen. A gradual withdrawal is possible, but an immediate one would cause even more problems. Iraq would fall even more into chaos, and we’d fall even more into disfavor with the rest of the world for failing to clean up our mess and abandoning the Iraqui people.
Sorry for the rant, but Ms. Sheehan and all the people like her really push my buttons in all the wrong way. People are welcome to try to convince me with logic, but trying to convince me with idiocy only convinces me that you’re an idiot.
By Adam on Sep 29, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Thanks for some interesting points! I agree completely that civil disobedience works only as part of a general policy of seizing the moral highground. Gandhi was so succesful in his civil disobedience because he was honest and respectful throughout. When civil disobedience uses any means possible, then it loses the claim to moral correctness.
I also agree, Adam, that the US dropping everything and leaving right now would not be a wise course of action, at all — it’s a mess that can’t be put entirely right, but as much as possible must be done.
Nevertheless, I’ve still got to say that I’m quite happy that Cindy Sheehan, and the hundreds and thousands of people with her, are out there protesting. Not because the policies that she’s advocating are the best ones, but because it’s time the administration felt some heat on the Iraq issue.
The Bush administration launched a mismanaged war, on false pretenses. Now that it’s been done, the US has to carry through on what was started, but that doesn’t mean that questions shouldn’t be asked. Currently, the message that is being sent to future presidents, and to the rest of the world, is that a US president can run pretty much any foreign policy he/she likes, and get away with it. None of the people involved have been fired, or even reprimanded, despite evidence like the Downing Street memos.
If it takes protest and arrests on the White House sidewalk to instil just a little accountability into the presidency, then I’m all for the protests carrying right on.
By paul.za on Oct 5, 2005 at 4:39 pm