Sheehan’s usefulness played out, she’s gone

So, Cindy Sheehan’s overlong 15 minutes have come to a slightly whiney close as she realizes – finally – that the Democrats and the left only loved her as long as she was doing their bidding emotion-tapping, Bush-bashing, Jackson-hugging, insurgent-encouraging, Chavez-hugging, camera-mugging, headline-grabbing, mob-collecting tool of distraction and obfuscation thing, meant to drive down the president’s poll numbers and support for his efforts to keep terrorist attacks from our shores.

I remember when Cindy Sheehan first came on the scene. First I was sympathetic, then I wondered about her, in her suffering, then wondered some more, then grew rather horrified, and then stopped wondering at all and wrote:

The woman, who this weekend kvetched because CNN et al were spending all of their time covering Hurricane Rita, which was “just a little wind and rain,” instead of Herself climbing all over Jesse Jackson, made certain she’ll be covered on all the channels tonight – that she’ll get the Drudge coverage and the number one spot on Technorati. She sat down where she wasn’t supposed to and, after three warnings, was “arrested.”

“Attention all you cameramen, I am about to be arrested, please focus!”

I can’t think of anything that seems to destroy people’s mental health faster than a few weeks or months of uncritical, gushing media hype.
[…]
And now, we see Mother Sheehan – an utter media creation who burnished her genuine tragedy with an ability to cry-on-cue, but who has long-since overplayed the “grieving mother” hand and become all about preening and performing for the camera. Yesterday people losing lives and livelihoods to a storm were mere peons interferring with her scheduled adulation. Today she got herself arrested, smiling the whole while and still quite certain that the constitution which guarentees her the right to self-destruct in an endless loop on CNN, is a constitution that is not worth dying for.

Last week, I wrote of Rosie O’ Donnell:

“…go figure out who is trying to kill you and who is actually trying to save your foolish ass.”

I commend the same advice to Sheehan, but given the text of her bitter and self-pitying missive, I don’t think she’s interested, yet, in consuming massive doses of reality. Her first does has almost done her in:

The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message…

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used…

The missive is rife with personal references and some ideas that hint of a failed messiah-complex, and there is some crazy stuff in there about the government “controlling what we think” (not yet, Cindy, that would be your good pal Hugo Chavez come back after ’08 for the rest) but one line of hers is worth exploring:

“The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing.”

Madam, your gracious and courageous son – whose death is tragic and for whom your mourning is nothing less than appropriate – will only have died “for nothing” if his mission is left dangling and unfinished by the very people – and their minions – who exploited you, and who help to make the job of every soldier in Iraq more difficult. Your son died fighting – like the very noblest and most formidable of heroes – to free a people and a nation from tyranny, and to rid them of the nests of violent and murderous men who keep their nation – and a whole region – under the boot, under the veil and out of the marketplace of ideas and invention, progress and parity. So long as those people are so subjected, the “world peace” you rant for will never take hold, and terrorism – the killing and maiming of utter innocents – will continue, throughout the world, to be the preferred means of movement.

The truth is, Mrs. Sheehan, President Bush is not the one trying to cheapen your son’s sacrifice. I certainly am not, either. Your son’s honorable death is being cheapened by the people who would say, “I support the troops, so I want them to be pulled out of a the place where they can make a difference, and have them stop acting like the warriors they are, so we can all sing Kumbaya and pretend to be friends with the whole world…until they attack another US City, in which case we should all beg their pardon and ask them why they hate us and how we can change to be more what they’d like.” Those are the people who want to “waste” Casey Sheehan’s young life. Those are the people who gave you “absolute moral authority” to do their bidding, until you dared ask them to let their actions be consistent with their rhetoric.

Do go home, Ma’am. Do go home and be silent for a little while, because silence is so much more instructive than noise. Go home and figure out who is trying to kill you and who is actually trying to save your grieving ass. Your son had already figured it out. He knew that liberty comes through the overthrowing of tyrants.

I tend to feel as this Freeper spokesperson does:

Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan’s Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.

“Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply,” Taylor said today. “Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger.”

Note: You’ll not be surprised to note that newspaper reports are carefully editing Sheehan’s goodbye letter
to omit her criticisims of the left and the Democrats. The press is ever-vigilant to insure that no dross touches their favored ones.

Siggy gives no quarter to Sheehan and wonders how much of her resignation is tied to financial questions, as he remembers some of Sheehan’s lower moments.

Tammy Bruce gives Sheehan’s screed a fisking.

Ed Morrissey and Rick Moran have more thoughts.

Don Surber also rolls his eyes as he bids Sheehan adieu.

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Sister Toljah