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 The
Grieving Activist
The Left's latest tactic - the Sheehan gambit...
[Selwyn Duke] 8/12/05
Cindy Sheehan’s
son fought under our Commander-in-Chief. Cindy Sheehan fights
against him. Cindy Sheehan’s son was killed on the front
lines. Cindy Sheehan is pushed to the front because she toes
the liberal line. We aren’t supposed to fight against
Cindy Sheehan because she’s a wounded soul.
I’ll
have none of it.
As you may
know, Cindy Sheehan is the woman who has vowed to camp out
near President Bush’s Texas ranch until the President
capitulates to her demand for a second meeting [Bush met with
her shortly after her son was killed in Iraq]. It seems that
her thinking – or, more accurately, feelings – have
evolved since their first encounter, and she now fancies that
the President is in dire need of her counsel vis-B-vis Iraq
policy.
As you may
know, Cindy Sheehan is the woman who has vowed to camp out
near President Bush’s Texas ranch until the President
capitulates to her demand for a second meeting [Bush met with
her shortly after her son was killed in Iraq]. It seems that
her thinking – or, more accurately, feelings – have
evolved since their first encounter, and she now fancies that
the President is in dire need of her counsel vis-B-vis Iraq policy.
Being the kind of prop leftist media and activist
groups prize – a
sympathetic and malleable character whose victim credentials
are beyond reproach – such entities have seized upon her
story and made her the poster-girl for hate-anything-remotely-conservative-no-matter-what
activism. Thus, she has become the latest of a new breed of political
animal: the Grieving Activist.
I know, alas, I must be a real ogre to not feel
compelled to cast my lot with the compassion-über-alles crowd, fall all
over myself issuing the expected disclaimers concerning the treatment
of the grief-stricken, and imply that such status renders one
immune from the criticism that usually attends being a left-wing,
activist wacko. But let’s get something straight: if you
want to grieve, grieve. If you want to play politics, play politics.
But my sympathy for the grieving ends where their use of their
grief as a political battering ram begins.
I say this unabashedly, without apology or concession.
In fact, those who use the Cindy Sheehans of the world for
political advantage
owe the rest of us an apology. And “use” is the operative
word, because this is the most shameful sort of exploitation.
Do you really believe that Michael Moore or the
New York Slimes cares about the plight of Mrs. Sheehan? Be
not deceived: they
use grieving activists because they know that such pawns are
both handy conduits – through which they can damage political
opponents and promote their agendas – and get-out-of-criticism-free
cards. They’re doing nothing less than taking a leaf out
of Saddam Hussein’s book, as they use these hapless saps
as “human shields.”
The ascendancy of the Grieving Activist hurts
our nation, too. While there are some who do God’s work, such as Mike Walsh
of America’s Most Wanted, more often than not they are
reduced to tools of leftist demagogues. As such, they exercise
a negative influence over man and his government.
Really, it’s just the same as with all activism. Generally
speaking, it’s the leftists who are so driven by dark emotions
that they take to the streets and protest with twisted faces
and snarling voices. Regular folks tend to behave, well . . .
like regular folks. They exert their political influence in private.
They help their families in private. They also grieve in private.
But the damage done is most profound when we place grieving activists
not just on a pedestal, but a throne. I don’t know if you
remember the names Carolyn McCarthy and Jean Carnahan, but they
were grieving activists who rode a wave of sympathy to political
victory.
Carnahan is the wife of late Missouri Governor
Mel Carnahan, who died along with their son in a plane crash
while running
for the Senate in the 2000 election. Under normal circumstances,
sanity would have prevailed and the people would have elected
Mel Carnahan’s opponent, who possessed the definite political
advantage of still being alive. But then acting Governor Roger
Wilson entered the fray, stating that should the voters elect
Mel Carnahan, he would appoint his widow to his seat. Thus was
spawned both a Grieving Activist and a sympathy vote.
McCarthy’s story is similar. After her husband was killed
and son partially paralyzed by Colin Ferguson in the Long Island
Railroad massacre, she ran for Congress on a gun-control platform
and won the seat. Her ideological persuasion didn’t seem
to be a consideration, nor her qualifications or soundness of
mind after such a traumatic experience. It was enough that she
was a Grieving Activist.
The sympathy vote strikes again.
Do I need to visit the Wizard of Oz and get a
heart? Well, call me crazy, but it seems to me that being a
leader in our country – someone
who’s going to shape policy that can affect us and our
progeny and impacts on issues of life and death – is a
pretty important job. Consequently, I’d like to see the
candidates for leadership chosen based on whether or not they
would be good for our nation, not on some misguided notion that
they deserve a seat of power as a consolation for loss.
Now, if you’re an Oprah Winfrey acolyte who would dispute
me, fine, but I demand some consistency. Please apply the blind-compassion
principle to all areas of you life. If you’re scheduled
to have brain surgery and the surgeon dies, request that his
wife operate in his stead. Or, if your car is in the shop and
the mechanic passes on, ask that his wife don the grease-monkey
suit.
You wouldn’t do that? Oh, why not? Because
such folly could result in eyes that no longer follow motion
or a car incapable
of locomotion? Because your brain and car are pretty important
to you and it could mess them up? Well, my country is pretty
important to me, and electing leaders on the blind-compassion
basis could mess it up.
If you want to elect a leader, elect a leader.
If you want to express sympathy, express sympathy. But if the
latter, that’s
what personal visits and a shoulder to cry on are for; merely
pulling a lever for the person is a lazy and sad substitute.
Then, I have to shudder when I think of what our weakness for
grieving activists could reap. What next? If one of Bill Clinton’s
scorned damsels of decadent dalliances visits an untimely demise
upon him, I can quite imagine the ensuing compassion-fest sweeping
Hillary Rodham into the White House in a mudslide.
So, call me what you will, but my compassion is reserved mainly
for the 300 million Americans who are affected when we anoint
a media darling of a Grieving Activist an opinion or policy-maker.
There’s something else that strikes me. We’re supposed
to be oh-so taken with the self-sacrifice and single-minded dedication
of the Grieving Activist. Ah, the nobility of it all. Why, this
person isn’t just retreating into a shell, he’s baring
his soul in public to ensure that the world will become a better
place and that his pain and loss won’t have been for nought.
Or, it could just be self-centeredness.
After all, when do grieving activists ever involve
themselves in the furtherance of a cause that doesn’t have to do with
something that affected them personally? After James Brady was
shot during the attempt on President Reagan’s life, his
wife, Sarah Brady, was transformed into a staunch gun-control
advocate. Why didn’t she make eliminating abortion or Third-world
hunger her passion? Because gun-control is an over-riding issue?
Okay, then why did she wait until it affected her life before
becoming a crusader for it?
We know why.
Now, don’t misunderstand me: a lot of good
rises from personal tragedies that rouse one to action. But
a lot of bad
can rise from them too.
But we’re not supposed to say these things. You don’t
challenge a Grieving Activist. You don’t question his motives
or integrity. You just lie back and take it. That’s part
of the game.
You see, it’s much like being a boxer and
someone saying,
“Look, you’re fighting Southpaw tonight, the guy
who just had a death in the family. So, I don’t want you
to be mean. You can bob and weave, duck and cover and cower,
but nothing more than pulled punches for you. You don’t
want the spectators to think you cruel now, do you?”
Yeah, then you find out that the compassionate advisor bet on
the other guy.
So, we’re supposed to discard the boxing
gloves and don kid gloves. But despair not. If we exercise
deft skill and fancy
footwork we just may avoid a knockout.
We’ll just lose on points.
Well, I’m sorry. Grief? Listen, I grieve for my country
every time I see a Grieving Activist deliver a series of unanswered,
devastating lefts, and I’m sick and tired of taking it
on the chin. If you can’t weather the blows, stay out of
the ring. ‘Cause, Southpaw, this pugilistic pen hits back. TOR
This piece
first appeared at The
American Thinker
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