Good. You have some names. (I’m especially fond of my homies at AFSC.) Now: what makes you think any of these people have influenced the way Ms. Sheehan thinks about the war or the death of her son?

Once again, your point rests on the assumption that Ms. Sheehan is incapable of thinking for herself.

If we accept your analysis as being true, and Drudge was responsible for digging up that old article, how exactly does that matter? Is that not the job of a journalist/bloggger/pundit?

The original artcile also had the following quotes …

“We haven’t been happy with the way the war has been handled,” Cindy said. “The president has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached.”
“…But in the end, the family decided against such talk, deferring to how they believed Casey would have wanted them to act.
“…We have a lot of respect for the office of the president, and I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn’t have to take the time to meet with us,” Pat said.

So, her contemporaneous thoughts were that the President’s meeting with them was helpful to their family, and they did not want to get into the “why did our son die” kind of talk because they believed that their son would not have wanted them to do so. Now, her recollection is that the President acted inappropriately, was rude, gave them mean looks, and was dismissive of them? I have no doubt that she was against the war from the get-go, and never suggested otherwise. However, when it comes to describing her meeting with the President, one has to question what has caused such a drastic shift in her memory.

How about AFSC, Code Pink, United For Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, and the Crawford Peace House ?

I wonder who dug that up too. Maybe the reporter that wrote the orignal story. Maybe a reader of the local paper that saw the recent publicity that she has been receiving. Who knows?

Let me redirect your attention to the link to the Philly Daily News I supplied upthread. The story reappeared online via Mr. Drudge’s site. The Philly Daily News connects the dots.

Let me also direct your attention to this article from the paper that published her original remarks. Here’s an excerpt:

Vacaville mother Cindy Sheehan has not flip-flopped position, but has used her outrage and indignation to fuel an anti-war movement following the death of her son, Casey, in Iraq following an ambush in April 2004, according to Editor Diane Barney.

You mentioned earlier that you don’t read Drudge. Wherever you read it, Drudge was the ultimate source as he’s the one who first published Sheehan’s so-called “change-of-heart.”

Her recollection of the initial meeting, as described in her recent media release appears to be vastly different than the contemporaneous quotes she supplied to the Vacaville paper. I speculated that maybe her mourning and pain from the loss of her son has altered her recollection of the events. I would suspect that if the President had acted rude, or inappropriate at the time, she would have said so at the time, not over a year later.

What groups? All of the anti-war / anti-Bush groups that are urging her on, trying to make her into some media celebrity for their cause. You are right, I have no evidence that their efforts have led to her current recollection of the prior events, it is mere speculation on my part.

The President’s job is not to act as a grief counselor for every family member of every American killed or injured in combat. It is unfortunate that she experienced this loss, but to continue to demand an audience with the President serves no purpose. It is a PR stunt. What would she gain from it, other than trying to make the President look bad? In WW1 and WW2, how many personal audiences did the Presidents give to the families of injured and killed soldiers?

As far as being “entitled” goes, not one single person is entitled to this. You can demand one, hold press conferences, etc … but she is not entitled to the one she is currently demanding any more than she was entitled to the first one. I would love my own personal audience with any sitting President, regardless of party, and could scream from the rooftops for it, but would never be entitled to it, and never get it.

What character assassins? Or am I to accept that her character has been assassinated as being a fact, because you say so. Maybe people are questioning what she is doing today, since it is inconsistent with her contemporaneous comments after the first meeting.

I wonder who dug that up too. Maybe the reporter that wrote the orignal story. Maybe a reader of the local paper that saw the recent publicity that she has been receiving. Who knows?

JD, doesn t it bother you at all that the usual gang of character assassins will take on anyone, anyone at all, who dares to criticize George Bush?

The article that detailed Ms. Sheehan’s earlier meeting with the President wasn’t online until somebody dug it up to compare to her more recent remarks.

I wonder who.

My guess is that she has received one more personal audience with the President of the United States than most people, and one more than she is entitled to.

not trying to malign her, just making an observation.

No, an observation would be something like: “She’s been sitting outside the ‘ranch’ for several days,” or “She’s been on television a lot lately,” or “She dresses funny.” You know, something that can be observed. That would be an observation.

What you’re making is called speculation. Her recollection is “clouded”? She might imagine that her first meeting took place on board a UFO. On the other hand, her recollection might be perfect. We have no way of knowing. You’re guessing. She’s been affected by “the urging of interest groups”? What groups? You forget to say. And even if you did say, you have no way of judging whether anyone’s urging has had any effect whatsoever.

…she has received one more personal audience with the President of the United States than most people, and one more than she is entitled to.

Well, maybe she’s got another son whose sacrifice can buy her a ticket to speak to His Highness a second time. Is that what it would take to be “entitled”?

You’re saying that her judgment and perceptions are impaired by mental stress. In the vernacular: crazy. In right-wing insinuation: craaaaazy.

What “groups” are using her? What indication do you have that she’s not lucid? If there’s anyone whose perceptions are clouded, it’s those who rely on the stories planted by oppo researchers on Drudge’s website to malign a Gold Star mother.

What’s wrong with bringing up the hunt for Osama in the comments WHEN OLIVER DID IT IN THE POST? Seems to me that’s the very definition of “on-topic”.

You will note that I never said, or even implied, that she was craaaaazy, or even crazy. I think she is a grief stricken mother, and I feel for her. She has already had her audience with the President, and the contemporaneous records indicate that it was a pleasant and helpful experience for herself and her family. Now it appears that her grief, and likely the urging on by the interest groups, have clouded her recollection.

She has had her audience with the President. All that is going on now is a publicity stunt, and she is being used as a pawn by the groups around her. It is sad.

He is now performing the “deflection” technique. It goes like this.

Sane person: “I hear the Yankees need some pitching.”
Ferris: “Well at least my relatives aren’t traitors”.

See? Now you have two choices:
1. Defend your relatives’ patriotism.
2. Ignore him.

I suggest #2

This post had nothing to do with Tora Bora, yet you seem to want to just throw random crap at the walls and see what sticks.

I’m not the one that brought up Tora Bora in relation to Cindy Sheehan. If you’ll look at the top of this post, you’ll see it was Oliver.

“Random crap” my a**…

I don’t think she’s crazy, but I heard her on NPR yesterday and her position on the war is identical to any number of anti-Iraq-war, anti-Bush citizens who are heard on the airwaves daily (Bush lied, Bush Bush made stuff up, etc.) Her unfathomable grief gets her a pass from heated rebuttal, but it doesn’t make her right. And from a practical standpoint, it doesn’t earn her a second private audience with the President. Not that she wants a private audience…she actually wants to make a very public political statement.

Her recollection of her prior experience with the President seems to now be clouded by her anger and grief.

No, YOUR recollection of her prior experience seems to be clouded by either reading Drudge or listening to Fox News. Those are the people who are spreading the “she must be craaaaazy” story.

JD, doesn’t it bother you at all that the usual gang of character assassins will take on anyone, anyone at all, who dares to criticize George Bush?

Bush is not planning to arrest Cindy Sheehan.

yet he hasn t found the person responsible for mailing those anthrax letters in 2001?

Um, you do know that he’s not a policeman, right?