The Tantrum in Crawford

Ok, I was hoping Cindy Sheehan-mania would get old and fade away, but it looks like that ain't happening. I'm going to have to write something.

I mean, it seemed reasonable to hope her tour of the headlines would be short-lived. It's common knowledge that military families tend to support the President's Iraq policy, so this one woman would be seen as the anomaly she is -- a woman working through her grief by taking her turn on the soap box -- and then we'd move on. Right? Wrongo.

Well, after it came out that the President (of the United States, that is; kind of a busy guy) had already met with her once, we could drop it. Right? Wrong again.

Well, surely after it became obvious that she was being used as a tool by the crackpottiest of the crackpot, left-wing, anti-American kooks, she'd lose some of her cachet, and the media spotlight would fade. Right? Sorry, still wrong. I have got to stop expecting people to be reasonable. It just leads to disappointment.

But at least things are a little bit different now in the internet age, where the major media tongue bath of Cindy Sheehan and her moonbat supporters can be countered by some clear-eyed commentary. Instapunk pulled the kid gloves off, which made it easier to type this post:

This woman is having an ugly nervous breakdown, and if her family have any sense of dignity or propriety they will go to Texas and drag her home.

...

Yes, it is a terrible thing to lose a child. But I'm getting tired of hearing the rote assertion that it's the worst thing that can ever happen to you, you never get over it, and no one who hasn't had the experience can ever understand. It's as if this category of event, "lose a child," represents some kind of emotional tree-line which, once passed, automatically elevates a person into a new state of existence from which ordinary mortals are excluded. It's the Skull & Bones of parenthood, an elite membership which confers extraordinary privilege and exemption from all merely human judgment or criticism.

Pardon me, but that's a crock. On several levels. Anyone who has lived more than a few decades comes to understand that life is largely about loss. The longer we survive, the more we lose: grandparents, parents, friends, lovers, wives, husbands, family, pets, and any number of dreams, possessions, and ideals, including -- for many -- faith, hope, and love. The whole idea that there is a Publisher's Clearinghouse Jackpot of Loss is absurd and demeaning to the human spirit.

Christopher Hitchens, who's never been confused for a Hallmark card writer, called Sheehan's line "sinister piffle":

I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them.

If this same scenario had played out 10 or 15 years ago, it could have been a crippling PR disaster for the administration. No one would would have questioned Cindy Sheehan's righteousness or George Bush's perfidy. At least if they did, you would have never heard about it. But today, it's so easy to get a counterpoint, you can't avoid it. Even some of the big media guys have to play along.

Michelle Malkin, the world's most adorable conservative pundit, points to an astonishing -- and astonishingly well-timed -- Newsweek article that follows the President as he meets with the families of the fallen:

The most tellingÂ?and movingÂ?picture of Bush grieving with the families of the dead was provided by Rachel Ascione, who met with him last summer. Her older brother, Ron Payne, was a Marine who had been killed in Afghanistan only a few weeks before Ascione was invited to meet with Bush at MacDill Air Force Base, near Tampa, Fla.

Ascione wasn't sure she could restrain herself with the president. She was feeling "raw." "I wanted him to look me in the eye and tell me why my brother was never coming back, and I wanted him to know it was his fault that my heart was broken," she recalls. The president was coming to Florida, a key swing state, in the middle of his re-election campaign. Ascione was worried that her family would be "exploited" by a "phony effort to make good with people in order to get votes."

Ascione and her family were gathered with 18 other families in a large room on the air base. The president entered with some Secret Service agents, a military entourage and a White House photographer. "I'm here for you, and I will take as much time as you need," Bush said. He began moving from family to family. Ascione watched as mothers confronted him: "How could you let this happen? Why is my son gone?" one asked. Ascione couldn't hear his answer, but soon "she began to sob, and he began crying, too. And then he just hugged her tight, and they cried together for what seemed like forever."

(Crying a little? Me too.) In the end, Cindy Sheehan's tantrum and the exploitation of it won't ammount to much. When they've wrung all the publicity out of her, the left will toss her aside and move on to the next victim. But frankly, I hope she never comes to her senses. I hope she spends the rest of her life thinking she did right by her son. Because the realization of how much she has belittled his sacrifice would be too much to bear.