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 Op Ed: Cindy Sheehan, The Mouse That Whispered
Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war mother known for Camp Casey, a protest outside of President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch, has filed to have her name placed on the upcoming ballot in an attempt to unseat Democrat Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
Ms. Sheehan, who burst onto the scene in the 2004 elections, demanding President Bush speak to her personally, after he had already met with her personally, took out the necessary papers Friday, at the San Francisco Court House, to begin the process to have her name placed on the ballot in opposition to the wealthy and popular Democrat Congresswoman from the District, Nancy Pelosi, who was elected as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives after the Democrat takeover in the 2006 elections.
To be placed on the ballot, Sheehan will have to gather 10,198 signatures or her efforts to have her name placed on the ballot will fail. Sheehan says, “It’s an uphill battle, but I'm excited about the signature-gathering process. It’s going to be an opportunity to talk to people about our campaign.”
Sheehan, who became disillusioned with the current Democrat party leadership because they failed to meet her July 23, 2007 deadline to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush, announced last year her intent to run against Pelosi in 2008.
Sheehan announced then, “I’m going to hold Nancy Pelosi accountable. I’m going to run in her district. And not only am I going to run, I’m going to win!”
Noting at the time that only 15 House members had signed a similar bill to impeach Vice President Cheney, Sheehan blurted, “That tells me there’s 420 enablers of the Bush regime in Congress. We want to be represented finally, dammit! We want a say! The people are speaking, and the people want the criminals out of the White House,” shortly before she and the 45 protesters with her were arrested for refusing to leave the office of Democrat Congressman, John Conyers.
The corresponding secretary for the Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club, J. Paton Marshall penned an open letter to Sheehan at the time saying, “If you continue with this threat to embarrass the speaker, it is very possible that the voters will turn against the Democratic leadership in Congress and return the Republicans to the majority. If that happens, all investigations will cease and justice for Bush and Cheney will be impossible.”
Club president, John Smith in endorsing the published letter added, “We can’t sit here and shoot at ourselves. We are not the obstruction. Even though (Sheehan) wants impeachment, it’s not going to happen. It takes two-thirds of the Senate,” acknowledging the lack of congressional support for impeachment.
Sheehan has had harsh words for other Democrats who failed to follow her whims on stopping the War on Terror, including candidate, Hillary Clinton.
Nancy Pelosi, the 10 term Representative from San Francisco, who traditionally garners upwards of 80% of the votes from the district, is no stranger to token challenges in elections, usually from a Republican. Sheehan does have name recognition and San Francisco is far left and filled with anti-war people, but Pelosi has experience, wealth and incumbency behind her, relegating Sheehan’s challenge to futile in many minds.
Sheehan, on the other hand, will have to gather the needed signatures to be on the ballot and faces a steep uphill battle in collecting funds through donations to base her challenge on. In many people’s minds, Sheehan disgraced herself, tarnished her Heroic sons sacrifice, alienated her family and many Veterans when she labeled a group of Viet Nam Veterans as “ Rightest America Haters.”
Sheehan’s husband Pat, who divorced her during the early days of her protests outside the Crawford, Texas ranch of President Bush, takes a different track in grieving the loss of their son, Casey, who volunteered for a hazardous mission he didn’t have to go on and which cost him his life.
In opposing Pelosi, Sheehan claims, “ she's out of touch with San Francisco's progressive roots.”
Sheehan is considered to be amongst the “ longest of long shots” opposing Pelosi, not even giving her a moment's worry on Election Day. Democrats outnumber Republicans 56 percent to 10 percent in Pelosi’s district and incumbents rarely lose, leaving Pelosi every right to be making plans for her next term in office.
Sheehan, on the other hand and despite the wide popularity she once held among the leftists during the 2004 campaign that failed to unseat Bush, leaves her looking much like comedian Peter Sellers did in the 1959 comedy, The Mouse That Roared, but more like a Mouse That Whispered.
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If I could vote there, I would drive over and sign up for Shiitehans to be on the ballot. She's misguided, inarticulate, deluded, ill-informed, delusional, and completely convinced of her own infallibility. A perfect candidate from the Democrat Party.
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It will be interesting to watch as Democrats 'eat their own' in choosing who to support there.
Seriously, I doubt Sheehan will receive much support, except from the lunatic fringe left of the party.
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What a joke! I don't see it happening...I don't think she's going to find enough signatures, let alone enough people to back her.
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@ Debra Myers (skyangel)
What a joke! I don't see it happening...I don't think she's going to find enough signatures, let alone enough people to back her.
She may well get the needed signatures, but money donated and actual votes against Pelosi will be scant.
Little wonder many view her as a "media whore." -
You endure the pains of birth, raise a child to adulthood and have the young man taken from you in a war of doubtful legality. Many may have accepted a flag for their son or daughter with little or no protest, but Cindy Sheehan was not such a one. Her outspokenness may even have shamed her husband.
I fully support her efforts against the warmongers and those complicit in their silence, and find the smearing and jeering here despicable.
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Um, is this the same Cindy Sheehan who basically disowned her son for his entering into the service, is divorced and estranged from her husband and her other surviving children, and has yet to even put up, at last account that I had heard, a gravestone on Casey's grave?
THAT Cindy Sheehan, that's the one you're speaking on the behalf of, skeptikool?
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I'll go one further in my remarks about Cindy Sheehan; I can attest that Lew, Susan, Mark, myself, and several others such as Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward and a great number of our fellow veterans from Gathering of Eagles have paid Casey Sheehan much more honor and tribute since his death than his own mother has.
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@ skeptikool
You endure the pains of birth, raise a child to adulthood and have the young man taken from you in a war of doubtful legality. Many may have accepted a flag for their son or daughter with little or no protest, but Cindy Sheehan was not such a one. Her outspokenness may even have shamed her husband.
I fully support her efforts against the warmongers and those complicit in their silence, and find the smearing and jeering here despicable.
Many forget, or ignore, that Casey was a 24-year-old man, an adult who made an adult decision on his own accord.
He voluntarily re-enlisted in the Army and volunteered for a mission he didn't have to. He is the epitome of a Hero.
His mother, on the other hand, has turned his death into an attention grabbing charade to further herself at the cost of her family, friends and Hero Sons sacrifice.
Of those that actually killed him, she said she bears no malice and called them "freedom fighters." What does that make of her Hero son killed by those same "freedom fighters?"
Bear in mind, Sheehan herself had met privately with Bush months before all this started and that time said, "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis. I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
A neighbor stated that she was enlisted by the Kerry campaign and subsequently dropped as she began acting kookier. Hence, she attained feelings of self importance and has been trying to further her own personal agenda since, he hero son be damned!
Just remember, skeptikool, one of those "warmongers" you condemn was her son, Casey, who voluntarily reenlisted after the invasion of Iraq. Will you join his mother in dancing on his grave? -
@ Mr Garibaldi
Um, is this the same Cindy Sheehan who basically disowned her son for his entering into the service, is divorced and estranged from her husband and her other surviving children, and has yet to even put up, at last account that I had heard, a gravestone on Casey's grave?
THAT Cindy Sheehan, that's the one you're speaking on the behalf of, skeptikool?
In fairness, Mike, a gravestone was placed on his grave, 2 years after his death and by his father, Patrick. His mother was too busy flittering around the world acting important. -
@ LewWaters
In fairness, Mike, a gravestone was placed on his grave, 2 years after his death and by his father, Patrick. His mother was too busy flittering around the world acting important.
Outstanding, I had lost track of whether that had come to pass or not. Cindy has raised so much of an uproar, no one has taken the time to take into consideration that he lost a son, too, when Casey was killed. -
@ Mr Garibaldi
Outstanding, I had lost track of whether that had come to pass or not. Cindy has raised so much of an uproar, no one has taken the time to take into consideration that he lost a son, too, when Casey was killed.
You have to feel for the man, Mike. He says, "“He was an adult, making his own decisions when he volunteered that day. And he would do it again. Nothing can tarnish that. What he did matters.”
His mother, on the other hand said, "Casey never thought this war was right. He never agreed with the commander-in-chief. He thought the war was wrong. He was a follower of Jesus Christ, and it surprised the hell out of us when he joined the Army. But he did it to serve, not to go kill innocent people in a war that didn’t make any sense. I begged him not to go, but he said, 'Mom, it’s my duty, my buddies are going, so I have to go.' "
Did she forget he was a Humvee mechanic, not an infantryman? -
@ skeptikool
You endure the pains of birth, raise a child to adulthood and have the young man taken from you in a war of doubtful legality. Many may have accepted a flag for their son or daughter with little or no protest, but Cindy Sheehan was not such a one. Her outspokenness may even have shamed her husband.
I fully support her efforts against the warmongers and those complicit in their silence, and find the smearing and jeering here despicable.
What I find despicable is a woman that would hold a press conference at a "gravesite", playing for the cameras only to find out it wasn't even her son's grave and HER son, that she should be honoring, at that very moment, still didn't even have a grave marker because she was too busy.
I find it despicable is people that would stand up for a woman that would dishonor her own son, who by the very words of his own sister:
“That’s all he wanted to do was serve God and his country his whole life,” Carly Sheehan said.
Casey was a hero and every time his mother opens her mouth and disrespects our troops, calling them rapists and murderers, she disrespects her son, what he lived for, what he stood for and what he died for.
THAT is despicable. Add a Comment
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