Again, with the Cindy Sheehan

I promised not to do this but those fucking neocons just won't let it go. I'm talking about Cindy Sheehan, of course. I heard about this group of fucking nutjobs on Sean Hannity's radio show today. (Why was I listening to Hannity? Apparently there's a deficit of incredulity and outrage in my life. Go figure.) But I really, truly thought I'd said everything left to say about this. Interesting that the story is being kept alive only by virtue of the vitriol and bitter contempt that the Right has heaped upon this woman.

Most of the rest of us are content to just let it go. Hmmm, OK. Soldier son died, mother wants answers, camps out to speak to Bush, gets lots of publicity. That should just about do it unless 'W' actually deigns to speak with her again, right?

Well, no. And that's where things get interesting. Butler Shaffer has another interesting piece about it on LRC today. Obviously Sheehan has tittie-twisted a whole bundle of nerves on the Right and Shaffer does his typically eloquent job explaining why.

Part of what fascinates me about all this is the strategy used by the Right. Lacking the ability to take on her ideas, they smear in the most unimaginative, self-parodying ways:

*Guilt by association (she's a pawn of Michael Moore and Moveon.org!) -- check.
*She's an "anti-semite" because she questions U.S. foreign policy goals with Israel -- check.
*She's "unpatriotic" or "anti-American" because she has the audacity to declare that the U.S. is not worth dying for (what nation-state is?) -- check.

And now here comes this Melanie Morgan leading the "You Don't Speak For Me, Cindy!" Tour. I shit you not. An organized tour designed explicitly to...well, what, exactly? What are they going to do when they arrive in Crawford? They're holding a "We Support Our Troops and Their Mission" rally, but I'm not sure what this means. Do you wave a bunch of flags? Hold up signs with messages supportive of the administration? Hold up more signs critical of Cindy Sheehan? What is this self-indulgent clusterfuck supposed to achieve?

Here's the thing -- understand that these neocons, in a sense, have already won. They have the "War on Terror" they wanted. Republicans have a virtual monopoly over the instruments of power -- all three branches of the U.S. government are solidly Republican. They're holding the remote and the rest of us are stuck watching Fox News. They have all the power!

And yet the good news for those of us who love freedom and peace is that power is not enough. And that's why they're so pissed at Cindy Sheehan. Her questions about the war are galvanizing people across the political spectrum and the neocons are powerless to stop it. Consider the name of their countereffort: "You don't speak for me, Cindy." But that's a straw man, since Cindy claims to represent no one but herself. And that's all they have: having long since run out of ways to defend the indefensible, they have nothing left to do but smear the truth tellers, wave the flags, and shout ever louder that they "support the troops and the mission!"

What they really support is bloodshed, misery, and destruction. Newsflash, guys: that's what war is.