flip-flops: whatever happened to being able to change your mind or elaborate on an idea?

[netmouse]

novapsyche has been keeping me updated on the Cindy Sheehan story, about a woman who is leading a demonstration against Bush and the war. Having lost her son in Iraq, Sheehan wants to meet with Bush and ask him what the "Good cause" is that these soldiers are dying for.

Today's update is How a Drudge Report attempting to discredit Sheehan quickly got picked up by conservative blogs and made it into Fox News.

What really gets to me is that the news people appear to be saying "earlier when her family met with the president, sheehan said things that {taken out of context and made to seem about a topic that they weren't about) made it look like she was comforted by the president's earlier visit. Now she says she's not happy. Obviously she can't claim to not be happy now if she thought at all well of him then."

I understand they think that maybe all this woman is doing is trying to get publicity to ask questions that might lead to getting the rest of our soldiers out of harms way and possibly (heh) impeaching the president. And they seem to think that would be a bad thing.

Remember kids, Bush says questioning your government is bad. Now repeat after me: Baaad.



In the meantime, the republican party is paying the lawyers bills of a man implicated in an investigation of illegal activities designed to prevent a "get out the vote" effort (those often involve things like calling voters and seeing if they need a ride to the polls) by swamping the phone lines of the organization doing it. Seems two people already charged have both stated the man was in the thick of making it happen.

The next election could be very, very scary. We really need to think about how we're going to prepare for it and how we're going to respond to it.

or something.

Comments

[yix.livejournal.com]

So I've been thinking about this Cindy Sheehan story and have come up with some tentative thoughts. Now, mind you, I have not put a lot of research into this, so I'm not sure if I'm missing anything but...

So the basic story is that this woman wants to meet with the president so that she can ask him some hard questions about why her son had to die. Seems like a reasonable thing to want to do. Whatever ultimate goal she had when she started her demonstration, she is getting a lot of publicity regarding her concerns and questions.

If the president had met with her privately, what would have happened? At best she would have gotten the kinds of answers that reporters have been getting all along....and maybe a bit of sympathy specifically for her son and situation. At worst she would have been heard, blown off, and left more upset and hurt than before. But none of that would have resulted in more than (maybe) a short story in her local paper and a few blogs.

The situation as it stands now is the only thing that has made this a story. So I'm all for Bush continuing not to meet with her. I don't think it honestly matters either way if he does meet with her in the end. She's not going to get any better answers than the rest of us. However, for as long as the public are interested, she is a rallying point. In fact, if done right, she may bring more parents and family members of service people into the dialog and get them active in general.

So I'm all for the situation. Go Bush for helping to create a story and go Cindy for doing what she thinks is right.