Sheehan's 15 minutes of infamy

The current obsession this silly season (what some of us in the news business label the time of year when stories are scarce and we look over hill and dale for anything at all to write about) is Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war protester who lost a son in Iraq.

It's hard to say anything bad about Sheehan without sounding as if you are spitting on motherhood, apple pie and the flag all at once, which is exactly why so many people like Michael Moore are using her to attack George W. Bush.

They have surrounded her with left-wing sycophants who speak deferentially to her and make her feel important. The sad thing is, and it really bothers me, is that Sheehan will probably look back 10 years from now and wonder how someone could be so cruel as to use her grief for their benefit. The left wingers probably think they are doing her a favor but they are pushing their agenda, not hers.

It's important to remember two facts about Sheehan's demand to see the president. First, she already saw him, soon after her son's death. Second, right after her first meeting Sheehan said that she could tell that President Bush really did have compassion for her loss.

Why is there a push for her to see Bush again? Why should she get to meet the most powerful leader on the planet for a second time, especially when there are other parents out there, others grieving their child's loss who haven't met with the president even once?

Why is Sheehan saying all these wild things that even those who oppose the Iraq war recognize as over-the-top ravings? Again I blame the group she has fallen in with. Every time she says something bad about Bush her entourage gives her positive reinforcement. The wilder the statement the more effusive the praise she gets from them.

In electronics it's called a feedback loop and you've heard one in action if you've ever heard a public address system suddenly screech when the microphone gets too close to a speaker. What happens is the sound coming out of the speaker is picked up by the microphone and amplified and put out of the speaker at a higher volume and the whole process repeats until the system can't amplify the signal any louder. It takes just a fraction of a second to go from regular amplification to all out screech.

The process takes longer for people but it evidently has been long enough for Sheehan to go from speaking rationally against the war and Bush to screeching unimaginably wild things. Before she didn't like Bush but felt he at least had a good heart now he is a member of the "Bush crime family". Some of her other statements make even less sense. She now says her son died "for oil and Israel".

We all hope her mother recovers from her stroke, no rational person likes to see others suffer. Perhaps some good may even come from it. Maybe once out of the spotlight and away from the left-wing fringe she might regain her composure somewhat and moderate her rhetoric and maybe even begin to live her life for those of her family still alive.