Lautenberg looks for some leadership

August 18, 2005

Dems on the Hill, for reasons that are not entirely clear, have been apprehensive about embracing Cindy Sheehan’s cause, which is one of the reasons I was pleased to see that our friend Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) write to Bush today, urging the president to respond to Sheehan’s questions.

But another key point raised by the senator is the idea that Bush, as a national leader, is in a position to comment on, and distance himself from, an unnecessary smear of a private citizen.

“I urge you to also call off the right wing attack machine, which has launched vicious personal assaults against Mrs. Sheehan. The mother of a fallen soldier must be able to express her views without personally being maligned by political operatives. If these conservatives do not want the sons and daughters of politically progressive Americans to serve in our armed forces, then they should encourage their own children to enlist.”

Even if we put aside the question of whether Bush should meet with Sheehan (it’s not going to happen), there’s no reason the White House has to remain silent while its allies and supporters attack this woman.

O’Reilly has suggested her efforts are “treasonous“; a Bush supporter ran over crosses laid for soldiers killed in Iraq; a neighbor has fired shotgun blasts to help intimidate protestors; and the airwaves are filled with demagogues smearing Sheehan’s name. Does the president have a comment about this? Even if he chooses not to meet Sheehan, is Bush prepared to criticize other conservatives who part of this campaign?

Lautenberg’s letter went out today. I don’t imagine he’ll get a response.

I’m starting to like that Lautenberg guy.

  • It’s really disgusting to see what the right (and the media generally… but I repeat myself) are doing with Cindy Sheehan. I just went to google news and searched her name. The first ten pages of results turned up these headlines:

    The Co-Opting of Cindy Sheehan, Grieving Mom
    Cindy Sheehan loses all credibilty
    Sheehan Shrieks As Poster Mom For the Left
    Sheehan’s Hubby: Cindy Go Home
    Cindy Sheehan’s Sinister Piffle
    Cindy Sheehan: Radical Left Wing Goon
    Cindy Sheehan: Probably Still an Anti-Semite
    Daily Epistle from Mother Sheehan
    And you thought YOUR mother was crazy?
    Leeches, Shame and Humanity: The Sheehan Saga
    Horowitz: Cindy Sheehan “doesn’t respect her own son’s life”
    Poster child for surrender
    The Manipulation of Cindy Sheehan
    Are the Anti-War People Really that Naive?
    To American troops: Thanks from US– Not Cindy Sheehan
    Stop Cindy Sheehan
    Cindy Sheehan Gives Aid and Comfort to the Enemy
    Cashing in On Casey
    Liberal Media Plus Cindy Sheehan Equals American Insult to Our Troops
    Cindy Sheehan Divorced From Reality
    Cindy Sheehan, Go Home
    Cindy Sheehan has decided to use her son’s flag draped coffin as a soap box
    Cindy Sheehan has an Agenda
    In Covering Cindy Sheehan, Daily Show Shows Lunacy And Hypocrisy
    Desperate Left Clings to Cindy Sheehan
    CINDY SHEEHAN IS A GLORY-HOUND
    Cindy Sheehan: Psychosis of Ignorance
    Bush and World Leaders ‘Condemn’ Cindy Sheehan’s Protest
    Oh, THAT liberal media – AP covers up for Cindy Sheehan
    World Bank’s Wolfowitz to President Bush: Bomb Cindy Sheehan

    And that’s from the “news”!

    FWIW, this morning I added Cindy Sheehan’s August 6 arrival at Crawforcd as an event on my graph of U.S. Military Death’s in Bush’s Iraq Quagmire.

    Also FWIW, a guy (asking to remain unnamed) wrote today to tell me he’s using that graph as his computer’s desktop screen where he works, the United States Military Academy at West Point.

  • Oh gosh darn it all..and there Prez Shrub II was, hoping that the Aug 15th signing would have been the next event on your graph. Showing the drastic, downturn of the deathline.

    Bummer for him.

  • Why would the lying fucker call off the dogs regarding Cindy when he refused to call off the Swift Boat Liars? Or when he personally authorized the smearing of John McCain in 2000? EVERYTHING is political to this bastard, and nothing is out of bounds if it redounds to his benefit. Lying.Fucking.Bastard.

  • Isn’t funny how people who have done wrong, are so good at turning the wrong onto the other side? The mother is doing nothing wrong. Bush on the other hand lied to the American people. The war in Irag was not about terror, until just recently, after so many of our men and women from the military died this past month and last month. Bush decided he better call it terrorism, because people in America through the polls are calling him a lier.
    Those who decry the woman as a traitor, are no better than those who lied to get into Iraq in the first place. Protecting a lier does not make the lier any less of a lier, but only a well protected lier. If Bush were to come out and say why he attacked Iraq, does he think he will be less aman for telling the truth? He after all was the one being led down the path of B.S. by those treally in charge of the nation, and it sure ain’t him. He is hiding in Crawford, as his people Robotize him with their Everready system of the Messiah. He has shown how well he does when his group is no where to be found. He can not speak without one of their well memorized speeches. He is not what you would call bright. Notice how last week, when asked about Iraq, he couldn’t answer. He was shameful., one day later the men, and girl in black show up, and walla, he can speak. He is saved by his fallen angels.The mother is only asking what the Noble cause was. He has never explained a cause Noble or otherwise. Nobleness is not invading a country, destroying the infrastructure, removing jobs, displacing people, and denying them water. Noble is really having the facts, befor doing something like this. Noble is not taking Israel’s lead to destroy a nation in order to gain their resources. I find it hard to believe that Bush is incaaaapable of realizing why the people of Iraaaaq are fighting back. Didn’t we do the same when England occupied the colonies in the 1700’s. These people are not insurgents, but people desperate to work in their country, to feed their famlies, and to live life free from and occupying force. We may have won the battle, but we will never win the war, if we don’t stop our possession of their country. Why is it Haliburten has increased it’s earnings by 274 percent in the last two years if we are not carpet bagging these people? We can not be the builders of nations this is the job of those people who live in those nations. We are not the Macedonians. Bush is not Alexander. He is just like Caligulas loosing his mind.

  • This administration and the right wing wackos always smear their “opponents”. That Cindy Sheehan is a well-spoken and knowledgable victim of this administration’s misdeeds is hurting them a lot, and they are running scared while turning to lob tomatoes at her.

    I think most people (ie the reasonable ones) see this vicious attack for what it is, and those perpetrating it will pay dearly. How the bushies could have miscalculated on this is amazing. They could have diffused the whole thing had bush brought her to the house for a chat right away, rather than sending the “ranch hands” (Hadley and sidekick).

  • We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
    … when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Declaration of Independence. 1776.

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in Liberty, …It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain-that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom-and that governments of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. President Abraham Lincoln.

    Cindy Sheehan and others in the name of our dead soldiers, stand together to question this present government and awaken the consciousness of the “We the People” of this nation. We have fallen asleep and have allowed the very government that our forefathers died to establish to become the despots that were abolished so long ago. The fathers of our nation gave us the right, no, the responsibility to question and to control the deeds of its government not the other way around. Anyone who interferes with this right is a traitor to the constitution and enemy to it’s principles of freedom. We can not dictate democracy in other countries while ignoring constitutional rights in our own.

    I stand with Cindy and all of those who defend their right to question this government and to object to its rule when its policies no longer serve The People but only serve the rulers and their profiteers.

    • Comments are closed.