I told you so

No sooner do I predict that the Democratic line will be that Casey Sheehan was "Swift Boated", along comes Frank Rich of the New York Times to expel excrement in the form of The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan. Time to get fisked, Frank.

CINDY SHEEHAN couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing.

Cheap shot, Frank. Tell me, what would you have had the President do? Yeah, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States", I'm sure that was a real shocker. What should he have done in response? Clamped down on airline security? Forbade the carrying of any knives, including toenail clippers? Required passengers to remove their shoes at airports? Break down the wall between intelligence and law enforcement? Would you and your ilk have applauded the President for taking these measures, or would you have accused him of leading us down the road to fascism?

So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

Wow, those are pretty tight criteria for declaring war. I guess under those terms, the United States was wrong to declare war on Japan, since they didn't attack inside the United States in 2001, either. But Saddam Hussein did attack the United States in 2001, in the form of antiaircraft missiles aimed at American pilots. As I've written before on this blog, when it comes to casus belli, truly we had an embarrassment of riches.

Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began.

Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, because you and your ilk in the media insisted on bringing this obscure and mostly irrelevant woman to our attention. By the way, I particularly like the term "Swift Boating", because when the Democrats use it, they reveal their willful ignorance of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Contrary to Democratic mythology, contrary to what the media wants us to believe, most of the allegations of the Swift Boat Veterans were never refuted. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that many of their charges are true. At least one of their charges (although not the most serious) most certainly is true -- John Kerry was not in Cambodia on Christmas 1968 and he most likely never was.

By all rights, to be "Swift Boated" should mean to have the media regard your allegations as unworthy of investigation, to be dismissed without a hearing. After all, how much digging did the mainstream media do into the matter of John Kerry's first purple heart? Did you hear a mainstream outlet report that there was no after-action report for that day (required when a man is wounded in combat), no documentation of a request for a Purple Heart, and sworn testimony from Kerry's commanding officer that he did not put Kerry in for a Purple Heart, he did not believe that Kerry's situation merited a Purple Heart, and he thought Kerry's request for a Purple Heart was laughable? But for Cindy Sheehan, the media surrounds her, she's a media darling, a media whore. Every word out of her mouth gets breathless coverage... every word, that is, except the outlandishly anti-American words. Those are kept on the QT.

Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war.

Believe it or not, Frank, not every figurehead for the Democratic Party is without blemish. Some of them, in fact, have some pretty darned big blemishes... like slandering American troops in time of war, like John Kerry did, or declaring that America is "not worth fighting for", like Cindy Sheehan did. Those blemishes should be shown. I never heard you decrying the "character assassination" of Ken Lay. Why? Because truth is an ironclad defense to slander. Exposing a public figure's dirty laundry isn't "character assassination", it's called serving the public interest. Or used to be, until an awful lot of Democrats found their nastiness exposed.

The most prominent smear victims have been Bush political opponents with heroic Vietnam résumés: John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry.

"Cindy Sheehan will take her place in the Democratic canon right alongside Max Cleland. Bank on it." --Voice of Reason

The assault on the whistle-blower Joseph Wilson - the diplomat described by the first President Bush as "courageous" and "a true American hero" for confronting Saddam to save American hostages in 1991 - was so toxic it may yet send its perpetrators to jail.

It may, but I don't think it will. In fact, I'd bet on it. We still don't know exactly what happened. We do know that probably no laws were broken. We also know that Ms. Plame was not undercover and apparently just about everybody down to her PTA knew she worked for the CIA. And as for the "heroic" Joe Wilson, I bet there are plenty of real scumbags who have done, sometime in the past 15 years, something courageous and heroic. Character testimony from 1991 has little to do with whether or not Wilson is a liar (hint: he is.)

True to form, the attack on Cindy Sheehan surfaced early on Fox News, where she was immediately labeled a "crackpot" by Fred Barnes.

News flash! Stop the presses! Political commentator gives political commentary!

The right-wing blogosphere quickly spread tales of her divorce, her angry Republican in-laws, her supposed political flip-flops, her incendiary sloganeering and her association with known ticket-stub-carrying attendees of "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Her divorce: given that both Sheehans have dropped not-so-subtle hints that Cindy's activism was a proximate cause of her divorce, don't you think it's relevant news?

Her angry in-laws: yes, it seems that just about everybody who knew Casey Sheehan other than his mother is appalled. Don't you think that's relevant? Cindy Sheehan is the only one who is allowed to speak for Cindy Sheehan (and of that she's done plenty); she is not the only one who is allowed to speak for Casey Sheehan. I'm sure his mother loved him very much. I'm sure lots of other people loved him very much too, and they have as much right to speak as Cindy.

By the way, Frank, do you have a source for the claim that all of the members of Casey's family who were represented by that release are Republicans? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Her flip-flops: There's no "supposed" about it, Frank. The fact is she gave a description of her meeting with the President, and then later on she gave a description that was very different. "Flip-flop" is the charitable way to put it. "Lie" would probably be more accurate.

Her incendiary sloganeering: I'll grant that "America is not worth fighting for" is pretty incendiary. I'm not sure why it should be kept from the public.

Her known association with 9/11 attendees: Yes, exactly. There are sane people, and then there are kooks. Cindy sides with the kooks.

But this time the Swift Boating failed, utterly

Which is why Sheehan has a net negative approval rating.

When the Bush mob attacks critics like Ms. Sheehan, its highest priority is to change the subject.

Gee, I thought the subject was "Mrs. Sheehan pleads for audience with President to talk about son's death." Given that subject, it's quite relevant to point out that 1) she's already had a meeting with the President, 2) she's already said exactly what she'd say to him, so it's unclear exactly what such a meeting would be intended to accomplish, and 3) she's stark raving loony. Yes, Frank, Democrats rallied around a woman who's stark raving loony. Don't blame Karl Rove for that; it's not his fault she's certifiable.

If we focus on Joseph Wilson's wife, we lose the big picture of how the administration twisted intelligence to gin up the threat of Saddam's nonexistent W.M.D.'s.

You people are the only ones who are focusing on Joe Wilson's wife, Frank. Nobody else really cares. His wife was never a big issue, the allegedly (although not actually) illegal mention of his wife's name to the press was. If the Plame kerfuffle distracts from the issues you'd rather focus on, you've only yourself to blame.

By the way, there are plenty of quotes from Democrats and Republicans alike who asserted with certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction... in 1998. Does the administration's intelligence-twisting power extend into the past?

The hope this time was that we'd change the subject to Cindy Sheehan's "wacko" rhetoric and the opportunistic left-wing groups that have attached themselves to her like barnacles.

Can I infer from the scare quotes around "wacko" that you do not believe that Cindy Sheehan's rhetoric has been wacko? Are you at all familiar with Cindy Sheehan's rhetoric, perhaps?

That way we would forget about her dead son.

I haven't forgotten about Casey Sheehan. But I've got a feeling that Cindy Sheehan has.

The one thing nobody has really dared to ask is: what would Casey have wanted? This? He voluntarily chose to enlist and reenlist, he volunteered for the dangerous mission that cost him his life. Clearly he believed in what he was doing. Would he be happy to know that his mother is doing what she's doing, saying what she's saying?

Maybe. Or maybe not. And I don't think we can simply take Cindy Sheehan's word that he would have.

The backdrops against which Ms. Sheehan stands - both that of Mr. Bush's what-me-worry vacation

In case you haven't noticed, Frank, it's August. Congress is in recess. That's how come the President was able to nominate John Bolton, remember? The legislature is not in session; nothing is happening in Washington. The President is still the President. He still has to do all the, you know, President stuff that the President does everyday. But there's no need for him to be in Washington, D.C. to do it. So he goes down to Crawford and does his job there, and all of you in the media smirk about it. Hope you're proud of yourselves.

Her point would endure even if the messenger were shot by a gun-waving Crawford hothead

The disturbance in the Force you feel is the sexual arousal of thousands of far-left liberals as they imagine this dream scenario and what a boon it would be for them.

or she never returned to Texas from her ailing mother's bedside

The most likely scenario, in my opinion.

or the president folded the media circus by actually meeting with her.

Yeah, that would end the "media circus" for sure. Cindy would meet with the President in entirely good faith, answering his respectful words with ones of her own. She'd listen to what he had to say, and with an entirely open mind evaluate his explanations for the necessity of the war in Iraq. At the end, even if they continue to disagree, they will do so with mutual respect, and embrace before parting. And Cindy Sheehan would be satisfied, feeling that her son rests a little better now.

Meanwhile, back in this reality, Cindy Sheehan plans exactly what she'll say when she comes out of that meeting before she even goes in. She comes right back out, hoists her megaphone, and shrieks very bad things about the President. She then embarks on the Cindy Sheehan Grand Tour 2005, trailed by a barking and panting media.

The public knows that what matters this time is Casey Sheehan's story, not the mother who symbolizes it.

I hope you're right. If they did, his mother's radical views would receive even less sympathy.

Cindy Sheehan's bashers, you'll notice, almost never tell her son's story.

Neither, for that matter, do Cindy Sheehan's supporters.

They are afraid to go there because this young man's life and death encapsulate not just the noble intentions of those who went to fight this war but also the hubris, incompetence and recklessness of those who gave the marching orders.

And you are afraid to go there because this young man's life and death encapsulate not just the willingness to serve one's country in the armed forces, but to volunteer and sacrifice for it.

Specialist Sheehan was both literally and figuratively an Eagle Scout: a church group leader and honor student whose desire to serve his country drove him to enlist before 9/11, in 2000. He died with six other soldiers on a rescue mission in Sadr City on April 4, 2004

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Frank. You're endeavoring to tell the story of this brave young man, remember? Don't you think maybe a few things happened to him between his Eagle Scout upbringing and his death? Why don't you mention the part where he freely volunteered to join the armed forces, then re-enlisted even when he knew he might get sent to Iraq, and then volunteered to take part in the dangerous rescue mission that cost his life? If you're trying to give us a picture of Casey Sheehan, the man, don't you think you're omitting a few key details?

According to the account of the battle by John F. Burns in The Times, the insurgents who slaughtered Specialist Sheehan and his cohort were militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric. The Americans probably didn't stand a chance.

Well, if a Times reporter says it, it must be true. Or maybe not. I think I'll trust the military over this one. Given that Sadr City was pacified shortly thereafter, I think the commanders on the ground pretty much know what they're doing.

Yet in the month before Casey Sheehan's death, Mr. Rumsfeld typically went out of his way to inflate the size and prowess of these Iraqi security forces, claiming in successive interviews that there were "over 200,000 Iraqis that have been trained and equipped" and that they were "out on the front line taking the brunt of the violence." We'll have to wait for historians to tell us whether this and all the other Rumsfeld propaganda came about because he was lied to by subordinates or lying to himself or lying to us or some combination thereof.

You know something, Mr. Rich? The left constantly denigrates Bush for acting without allies (in the new Democratic dictionary, "triacontapartite" is synonymous with "unilateral") but you sure have a funny way of treating the allies we have. Like Iraq. Mr. Rich, do you have any idea what an Iraqi policeman goes through? He's risking his life, not just by being on the job, but by even applying for the job. You at your cushy desk in your air-conditioned office in the New York Times's fancy new eminent-domain-acquired building should think twice before sneering at him. Yes, they are not ready to defend themselves yet. But they're working on it, and they're trying hard, and in too many cases they are dying for their devotion. Cut them some slack, or at the very least, show them some goddamned respect, because they deserve it.

Casey Sheehan's death in Iraq could not be more representative of the war's mismanagement and failure, but it is hardly singular. Another mother who has journeyed to Crawford, Celeste Zappala, wrote last Sunday in New York's Daily News of how her son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was also killed in April 2004 - in Baghdad, where he was providing security for the Iraq Survey Group, which was charged with looking for W.M.D.'s "well beyond the admission by David Kay that they didn't exist."

Cindy Sheehan's opinion of the war that cost her son's life is hardly singular, as evidenced by your anecdote, but it could not be more misrepresentative of the opinions of most military families, or even that small subset of military families that have suffered a loss. Heck, Cindy Sheehan's opinion isn't even representative of her own family's opinion, but you'll continue to treat her with the reverence of a saint, of that I have no doubt.

(Update: Welcome readers from Michelle Malkin! Thanks, Betsy!)