An Argument that Deserves Moral Seriousness
Thank God for Christopher Hitchens!
The atheist crank of a brit hits it right on the head with two columns (here and here) in the liberal online mag Slate about Cindy Sheehan, the mother protesting the war in Iraq because of her son's death there.
This is a snake pit of a debate, because while I think Sheehan is very, very wrong to exploit her son's death for political purposes, he is still dead. She has, after all, still lost her own offspring in the very bloom of his youth, in a war. That truly is horrible, and who knows or who can judge where her judgement is and where her heart is.
However, Hitchens takes Maureen Dowd's (the other insane and inane New York Times columnist besides Frank Rich) argument that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute," and he throws it up in the air, he looks at it closely as it drops towards him, and then he smacks it down the road with an aluminum bat, striking it squarely on the sweet spot.
"Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive," Hitchens writes in his first piece, from August 15.
He ends that first piece by saying that he distrusts the political opportunisits who have taken Sheehan and made her into their puppet, "the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them." Then in Hitchens' second piece, he winds up and lets it go some more on these cowards, along with the good-hearted but naive souls who are demanding immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
Ouch. That slapping sound you hear is reality hitting the cheeks of MoveOn.org types and Howard Dean acolytes.
Also, did you know that Sheehan did get a meeting with President George W. Bush one year ago? Not only did she and her husband meet with him for 10 minutes, but Sheehan said afterward that because of the meeting "the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together."
Mrs. Sheehan told The Reporter of Vacaville, Ca, of the president after meeting him: "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."
Her husband Patrick told the same reporter, "I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us."
So what's changed?
The atheist crank of a brit hits it right on the head with two columns (here and here) in the liberal online mag Slate about Cindy Sheehan, the mother protesting the war in Iraq because of her son's death there.
This is a snake pit of a debate, because while I think Sheehan is very, very wrong to exploit her son's death for political purposes, he is still dead. She has, after all, still lost her own offspring in the very bloom of his youth, in a war. That truly is horrible, and who knows or who can judge where her judgement is and where her heart is.
However, Hitchens takes Maureen Dowd's (the other insane and inane New York Times columnist besides Frank Rich) argument that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute," and he throws it up in the air, he looks at it closely as it drops towards him, and then he smacks it down the road with an aluminum bat, striking it squarely on the sweet spot.
"Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive," Hitchens writes in his first piece, from August 15.
He ends that first piece by saying that he distrusts the political opportunisits who have taken Sheehan and made her into their puppet, "the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them." Then in Hitchens' second piece, he winds up and lets it go some more on these cowards, along with the good-hearted but naive souls who are demanding immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
"I hope I don't insult the intelligent readers of this magazine if I point out what the consequences of such a capitulation would be for the people of Iraq. Paint your own mental picture of a country that was already almost beyond rescue in 2003, as it is handed back to an alliance of homicidal Baathists and Bin-Ladenists. Comfort yourself, if that's the way you think, with the idea that such people are only nasty because Bush made them so. Intone the Sheehan mantra—repeated this very week—that terrorism is no problem because after all Bush is the leading terrorist in the world. See if that cheers you up. Try it on your friends. Live with it, if you are ready to live with the consequences of what you desire.
Ouch. That slapping sound you hear is reality hitting the cheeks of MoveOn.org types and Howard Dean acolytes.
Also, did you know that Sheehan did get a meeting with President George W. Bush one year ago? Not only did she and her husband meet with him for 10 minutes, but Sheehan said afterward that because of the meeting "the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together."
Mrs. Sheehan told The Reporter of Vacaville, Ca, of the president after meeting him: "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."
Her husband Patrick told the same reporter, "I have a new respect for him because he was sincere and he didn't have to take the time to meet with us."
So what's changed?
posted by stan at 12:58 AM
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