Sheehan Is Believin’
By Ron Marr (08/27/05)
I can’t accurately label the anti-war protest of Cindy
Sheehan a three ring circus. It’s really more akin to
the two-bit sideshows of my youth, low-budget
productions featuring toothless folk and patched-up
tents and entertainers who had big sores on their
lips. I’ll grant that Cindy herself is a clown, and
I’ll admit that the idiotic actions of her followers
are disturbingly reminiscent of trained bears, talking
parrots and cymbal monkeys. But when the TV cameras
scan the folks who have teamed up with Cindy during
her extended engagement in Crawford, Texas, all I see
is a ragged collection of dog-faced boys, bearded
ladies, freaks and geeks.
In a normal circus, of course, the latter would earn
his daily bread by biting the head off a live chicken.
Performers in “Cindy Sheehan’s Socialist Circus of the
Starry Eyed” would never attempt this feat, as the
aforementioned fowl describes the character of the
entire entourage.
There are attempts to erase the sideshow aroma from
Cindy’s big tent, but I suspect these efforts will
suffer miserable failure. Al Sharpton is apparently
coming down to play ringmaster, and Joan Baez is on
hand to offer a medley of all her old tunes from the
Vietnam era. This is a little bit like trying to
increase ratings on Will and Grace by promoting a
“very special” episode featuring Bob Denver and Gary
Coleman.
Sharpton and Baez just don’t really give the event
that much-needed stench of credibility. Al is in this
strictly for the face time, and love or hate the man
you do have to admit that he is to political
tomfoolery what Don King is to boxing. If there’s a
stone that might provide Al with a few more headlines,
he’ll squeeze that sucker till it bleeds. As for Joan
Baez, I suspect that she’s a bit irked that nobody
under 40 remembers her name, and is hoping that her
appearance at Camp Looney will increase sales of her
dusty 8-tracks commonly found at your finer interstate
truck stops. Joan is protesting all right. She’s
protesting that she got old as dirt and her music went
out of fashion about 30 years ago.
So look...we’re all compassionate conservatives here.
Lets take a deep breath and allow the Prozac
protesters to rant till they turn blue in the face.
Let’s admit - because they know they are wrong, and
have no cohesive base, and have no values, morals,
ethics or plans - that this is the best show the
Democrats could come up with. Let’s be big about this
and give them the same sort of accolades we would give
to the slow child whose modeling clay pencil holder
resembles a road kill squirrel. Lets tell them they
are doing “really really well,” and pretend not to
notice they have their shirts buttoned wrong. Let’s
tell them what smart boys and girls they are, pat
their wittle heads. and go on with the business of
winning elections and kicking the stuffing out of
Islamic murderers.
The Sheehans of the world don’t have a well-developed
attention span...and it won’t be long before her crew
graduates to re-living the 60’s in some other venue,
holding love-ins at nuclear power plants, protesting
against the evil that is the microwave oven or
becoming outraged that the concession stands at high
school soccer games aren’t allowed to sell heroin and
condoms.
The one thing I do find odd about all this, is that
the TV networks are allowing Sheehan to consume about
38 minutes of every 30 minute news broadcast. Their
ratings have to be in the toilet, and they have to be
losing a ton of money. This is how bad it is. If there
is one story that could make Fox New’s addiction to
Aruba seem exciting, it’s Cindy Sheehan’s Texas
version of Woodstock.
And yet, the talking heads can’t wait to regale us
with breaking story that brave Cindy today got a foot
massage, or that wise Cindy just labeled the President
a murdering terrorist. They seem to disregard other
Cindy news - like that her husband is divorcing her,
or that the entire rest of her family has disavowed
her words and view her as a shameful embarrassment -
but what the heck? It’s not like we expect the
networks to be objective or truthful.
The truth of the matter, is that most media folk
regard the sight of Cindy with the same reverence
shown by Southern trailer folk who spot the face of
Jesus’s third cousin in a cheese sandwich. I’m pretty
sure the networks have gone so far as to actually
change their names in the quest to create the first 24
hour, “All Cindy, All The Time” channel. NBC now
stands for “Nothin’ But Cindy.” ABC translates into
“All ‘Bout Cindy.” Of course, CBS stationary now bears
the legend “Cindy Broadcast System,” and CNN is the
Cindy News Network.
I guess, in the case of that last one, it’s better
than their old moniker of “Crappy News Network.”
The sad part of this story, is that I think Cindy
Sheehan believes at least most of the nonsense she
spouts. She has no idea she is being used by the likes
of the George Soros/Michael Moore/Moveon.org
contingent. Hell, she thinks they like her. She has
zero conception they are playing her for a patsy, that
she’ll be left in the trash when her currency loses
its value. I think she probably cracked up when her
son was killed in Iraq, and justifiably so. But, I
also think she was probably very mad at that son for
choosing a path she has despised for life. Sheehan’s
history is one of being far left, anti-military, and
pro-lunatic fringe. That her son believed in honor and
tradition, and died defending the America he loved,
must have been a stake to her heart.
A commonalty is inherent to all carnival sideshows At
first you’re attracted to the strangeness of it all.
You enter the tent, and you can’t help but stare at
the freaks.
A few minutes after leaving, you feel like maybe you
should take a shower.
After witnessing the Sheehan sideshow, perhaps it will
take two showers.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Ron Marr
