What Cindy Sheehan's New Pals Really Think About Her Army Son

As anyone who watches TV knows, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, has camped out in Crawford, Texas, demanding that the president meet with her. Of course, as we also know, the president did meet with her and her first account of the meeting indicated she was very favorably impressed with the demeanor of the president. For whatever, reason, she has changed her tune.

A coalition of anti-war groups has latched on to Mrs. Sheehan, calling her the “Rosa parks of the anti-war movement.” She is, of course, the public face the anti-war types need. But she might be interested in what her new pals really think about her son.

In response to my NRO piece yesterday calling into question the utility of much of the criticism of the war, I received a very illuminating e-mail, which I posted on The Corner.

Dear Mr. Owens;

You write, "It is hard to conduct military operations when a chorus of
eunuchs is describing every action we take as a violation of everything that
America stands for, a quagmire in which we are doomed to failure, and a
waste of American lives."

But Mr. Owens, I believe that those three beliefs are true. On what
grounds can I be barred from speaking them in public? Because speaking them
will undermine American goals in Iraq? Bless you, sir, that's what I want
to do in the first place. I am confident that U.S. forces will be driven
from Iraq, and for that reason I am rather enjoying the war.

But doesn't hoping that American forces are driven from Iraq necessarily
mean hoping that Americans soldiers will be killed there? Yes it does.
Your soldiers are just a bunch of poor, dumb suckers that have been swindled
out of their right to choose between good and evil. Quite a few of them are
or will be swindled out of their eyes, legs, arms and lives. I didn't
swindle them. President Bush did. If you're going to blame me for cheering
their misery, what must you do to President Bush, whose policies are the
cause of that misery?

Yours sincerely,
(Name withheld)

If Mrs. Sheehan wants to be used to advance the interests of the antiwar left, that is her prerogative. But she might want to peruse the blogs that constitute the fever swamps of the left. There she will find that this is not an isolated case, but that her new pals feel nothing but contempt for her son—that indeed they do believe he was a “poor, dumb sucker.”