Cindy Sheehan-Private Personnas And Public Spectacles

I just recently got off the Michael Moore web-site, where I read with interest about the exploits of Ms. Cindy Sheehan, who is currently camped outside the gates of the Bush ranch in Crawford Texas, where the President is currently in the midst of a five week working vacation. According to Bill O'Reilley, Ms. Sheehan is being used by Michael Moore and other elements of the Far Left, from MoveOn.Org, to a group called Code Pink. I tend to agree with him. Of course, she is incensed at the accussation, and has evidently acquiesced to the urgings of her new-found friends to not appear on the O'Reilly Factor. Of course, she as a right to make this decision, but if I could get the word to her, I would advise her to appear on the program. O'Reilly at least tries to put on the appearrance of fairness, and if he were to be stupid enough to rake her over the coals, or to demean her in the slightest way, he knows full well that there would be hell to pay in the way of public relations.

It's turned into a pathetic type of dance really. Some, like O'Reilly, claim she has changed her position as regarding Bush, she says she has not, and insists that her past remarks have been misinterpreted, and she really meant-but all this is unimportant. It would be easy enough to accept that this is a woman who is grieving over the loss of her son. That this is a woman who is in pain and who is sincere in her efforts to get a private meeting with the President in the way of an explanation, and that she is determined to do her part to hasten an end to the war.

As such, it would be more than easy to undertand how her position regarding Bush over the course of the last few months may have evolved. How she may, in effect, have come to change her mind, to see things in a different perspective. So what? Is it against the fucking law to change your mind? If it is I'm in a hell of a lot of trouble,as there are times when I have changed my mind in the middle of a fucking post.

It's also understandable if she is in fact being "used" by Michael Moore, Code Pink, etc. Birds of a feather.

But on the other hand, that's just the problem. Cindy Sheehan has by now become, not a bereaved mother who is in pain and turmoil while in the throes of a grieving process over a very real and personal loss. She has now become a public commodity. A celebrity, in a sense, a public personna. She is now, in effect, no longer a private citizen. She is in the public domain.

Some of the more cynical of her opponents-and believe me, they are her opponents, though they might refrain, for the moment, from open displays as such-would say that she has been bought and paid for, that she is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Far Left. And perhaps they would be correct. It has been pointed out, for example, that she has been against the war from the onset, before even her son was assigned to it. And, incidentally, you will begin to hear this trumpeted more and more. Gently, at first, and then the sounds will become louder, and ever more shrill. As of yet, she has not denied this charge. And of course, if it is the truth, it is an opinion which she had, and has, a right to hold.

All ready, certain members of her extended family have issued statements to the effect that she has chosen to dishonor the memory of her son, and that the remainder of the family does not feel as she does. So far, she has responded simply by stating, on Mr. Moore's web-site, that her husband and children are solidly behind her, and that is all that matters to her. Again, what is the point of her families statements? They have their opinions, and Ms. Sheehan has a right to hers. This simple basic fundamental civil liberty should not be the occassion for a family feud.

But the political elements involved in this matter, on both the Far Left and on the Far Right, will indeed use Ms. Sheehan, in the case of the former as a poster child, and in the case of the second as, unfortunately, target practice. It's coming. It's only a matter of time. And, in that second case, only two things have kept it from coming thus far. I would like to believe that simple human decency is one reason. The other reason is simple human cowardice and political calculation. But the feelers are all ready out, believe me, and the time will come when Ms. Sheehan will learn what I hope Mr. Moore has prepared her for, assumming he really has Ms. Sheehans all around best interests at heart. And that is, as soon as the politcal fall out is sufficiently calculated, Ms. Sheehan will become the target of perhaps as vicious a smear campaign as one could ever imagine. If there are any skeletons in her closet, they are due for a good public airing. If not, she certainly will at the least be faced with critics who will soon no longer refrain from taking off the kid gloves.

In effect, when you become a public person, and you involve yourself in controversial matters, you can expect to eventually become the object of a fair amount of criticism. And an unfair amount as well.