Cindy Sheehan Needs A New Hobby.

I can't stand Cindy Sheehan.  There, I said it.  I circled round and round this point in my two previous postings addressing her initial attempt to intimidate or antagonize Nancy Pelosi into doing her bidding by threatening to take her Congressional seat away from her; and her "big announcement." 

As a grieving mother, she had my unqualified sympathy.  As a petulant attention-begging activist....well, Neil Stanage in the antiwar British paper, The Guardian, pretty much summed up my thoughts.

Sheehan's overarching trait: her apparently boundless hubris. Her basic position appears to be that, since she has lost a son in the war in Iraq, every pronouncement she makes about that war, or about the wider world, must axiomatically be correct....

Presumptuousness....is yet another signature Sheehan trait. Like so many people at both ends of the political spectrum, she apparently believes that centrist positions can only be arrived at through cowardice, ideological corruption or bad faith.

In her resignation letter back in May, Sheehan vented at a nation that seemed too slow to bow down before her in gratitude. "I have invested everything I have in trying to bring peace with justice to a country that wants neither," she lamented.

Perhaps her compatriots were reluctant to follow a woman whose desperate drive for self-publicity extended to stretching out on her son's grave for a glossy Vanity Fair photoshoot. (The Guardian; links in original)

She seems to feel that she's been abandoned by the left because "started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party." (Washington Post; link in original)   As columnist Dana Milbank astringently notes, her problems actually started "with the hug and the promise of help she received from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, to whom she described Bush as a "terrorist." (Washington Post; link in original)

But that is so very Sheehan and so very characteristic as well of the sort of thinking characteristic of both the far left and the far right:  the inability to see or draw distinctions or to understand that the quality and persuasiveness of an opinion depends on how its holder arrived at it.

Sheehan was taken into custody inside Rep. John Conyers' office, where she had spent an hour imploring him to launch impeachment proceedings against Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Conyers, D-Mich., chairs the House Judiciary Committee, where any impeachment effort would have to begin. (The Washington Post)

In his column Milbank notes Sheehan's "voracious appetite when it comes to eating her own."  (The Washington Post)

Her challenge to Pelosi reveals (once again) how little she understands the system, politics, or the design of the U.S. Congress (which the founders intended to be a forum for citizens holding different positions).

Bereavement is no guarantee of wisdom. Yet Sheehan has been encouraged in her conceits, not just by opportunistic figures on the far left but by media icons, including America's most-overrated columnist, Maureen Dowd.

"The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute," Dowd declared in a 2005 column.

Is the moral authority of bereaved parents who believe the war was justified, or who continue to support Bush, similarly unimpeachable? Dowd was silent on this point, though her views can easily be guessed at. Sheehan, for her part, described such parents as "brainwashed". "They know the pain and heartache and they should not wish it on another," Sheehan scolded.

The inference - that anyone who disagreed with her could be motivated only by cruelty - was breathtaking in its presumptuousness.(The Guardian)

Invoking what Milbank calls "the little known mandatory impeachment" clause, she decries Pelosi for not caving in to her "demand" that Pelosi (the Speaker of the House and therefore third in the succession) put impeachment back on the table.  Pelosi, being a savvy politician, has reasons---and they're pretty solid ones---for not doing so at this juncture.   As Dana Milbank says, "Congressional leaders have ruled out impeachment as a waste of time that -- even if it were somehow successful -- would serve only to elevate Vice President Cheney."  (Washington Post; links in original)     And if you consider the order of succession, as I discussed in an earlier note, the alternatives (except for Pelosi herself, who probably can't afford to appear to be making a power grab) aren't all that reassuring.

Finally, impeachment was never intended to be a way of getting rid of a president that Congress doesn't care for.  Sadly, Republicans during the Clinton years didn't have the sense to see that they were setting a precedent for the abuse of the process as a way of getting rid of an unpopular president before his---or her!---term has ended.  Sheehan's "movement" is the consequence. 

The bar for impeachment is, I believe,  meant to be high---"high crimes and misdemeanors."  Prior to Clinton, I'd have said that the existence of an act qualifying as such such needed to be unequivocal.   If there were a strong bipartisan movement within Congress to impeach Bush I might support such an outcome, at least if they continue as they are going. But what are the odds that Congressional Republicans are going to take an action that would put Pelosi in charge?  (BN-Politics) Not high, I'm guessing.

Besides, what about ending the

Iraq war (which Pelosi  has said is her first priority)?  Wasn't that supposed to be Sheehan's first priority?  But let's not play games:  the one thing that's become clear is that Sheehan is Sheehan's first priority. 

Fortunately for all of us who want an end to the war, but understand that there are no easy ways out, Sheehan seems determined to alienate the very people who first provided her with a national forum.  Daily Kos has apparently stopped her from posting there.  She's alienated many Democrats and moderates who might initially have sympathized with her---and given her the benefit of the doubt---as a grieving mom.  I'm guessing---or perhaps just hoping--- that her fifteen minutes is just about over and that she will soon cease to be newsworthy. 

She could redeem herself (with me, I mean) by carrying on with her activism the way the rest of the country's activists do:  by staging local marches, standing on street corners, doing whatever is possible without the assurance---or indeed the expectation---of national attention.  This would convince me that I had her wrong and that she really was all about the issues instead of all about Sheehan.   But does anyone really expect this?  And I think---I say I think---that when the cameras stop flashing, her retirement from retirement will come to an end.

BN-POLITICS POSTS:

• Whither      Cindy Sheehan? From Antiwar Icon to Pelosi-Baiter. How? Also: Why?
• Annoying      Former Antiwar/Current Impeachment Activist Challenges Pelosi as Promised.

LINKED, QUOTED, OR CITED

• Dana      Milbank, Not the Retiring Kind (The Washington Post)
• Cindy Sheehan, I Have Been "Warned" (Daily Kos)
• Neil   Stanage, The epic narcissism of Cindy Sheehan (The Guardian)
• Metzler,   Sheehan Wants Impeachment, Pelosi's Job (The Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072300697.html?hpid=moreheadlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/23/AR2007072301585.html?hpid=news-col-blogs

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