Michael Moore's (And The New York Times') Sock Puppet

A few weeks ago, I could not have imagined that the mainstream media could have exhibited any more vulgarity than Fox News has with its Natalee Holloway coverage. But, with the Cindy Sheehan saga, it has managed to do just that.
During periods when the news is slow, the media will essentially create news to attract viewers and readers, and keep advertising revenues up. In the old days, big city newspapers would concoct “crime waves.” The everyday, background crime rate would suddenly be exaggerated, just as Fox News routinely does with missing pretty girls. Natalee Holloway vanished at a fortuitous time for Fox, at the beginning of the summer when news is slowing down. Scott Peterson did Fox a similar favor by murdering his wife during the Christmas vacation lull.
In a prior year, the news media chose to fabricate a wave of shark attacks, even though the number of such incidents was just about average. Newsweek and Time magazine both came out with midsummer editions highlighting the summer of the shark.
This has been a slow summer too. Aside from its running body count, the media has lost interest in the Iraq war. There are hurricanes to report, but where’s the controversy? The same thing goes for forest fires. The darned things burn every summer and everyone is against forest fires.
So, when a showboating and supposedly grieving Cindy Sheehan showed up in Crawford, Texas demanding a second meeting with President Bush so that she could extract an explanation for her Marine son’s death, a bored midsummer media saw a chance to create news and advance their anti-Bush agenda.
One would think that Cindy Sheehan is the only grieving mother who lost a son in Iraq. She’s the only one getting attention.
What really makes this so vulgar is the way that Cindy Sheehan is being exploited. She’s essentially Michael Moore and George Soros’ sock puppet, spouting all the Moveon.org clichés. When she slips up and says something particularly offensive, the media acts as her public relations firm and edits her words to protect her credibility.
Did you know, for example, that Cindy Sheehan said that we invaded Iraq to do Israel’s business? Those darned Jews! This bit of wisdom drew former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke to her cause.
Recently, Cindy Sheehan called terrorists, “freedom fighters.” In her twisted worldview, her son was the invader and guys who set off the bombs are not terrorists after all. America really is the enemy.
The media has even gone so far as to fabricate scenarios that cover up for her previous contradictions. A recent Associate Press article contained this beauty: ‘Sheehan and other grieving families met with Bush about two months after her son died last year, before reports of faulty prewar intelligence surfaced and caused her to become a vocal opponent of the war.”
Now, the reporter who wrote that is either incredibly stupid or a bald-faced liar. The timeline is entirely wrong. The faulty intelligence the reporter refers to was demonstrated to be wrong long before Sheehan’s first meeting with the president. And Sheehan’s antiwar activities predate her son’s death.
This same reporter once tried to justify Cindy Sheehan’s coarse ventriloquism of her dead son: “I know my son better than anyone else. I don’t want anymore of my buddies killed just because I’m dead,” she said. “I know when it’s my time to greet him, he’s going to say ‘Good job, Mom.’ He’s not going to accuse me of dishonoring his memory.”
The reporter worked to create this illusion that her son also opposed the war by claiming that Casey Sheehan enlisted never imagining that he would see combat. In truth, he had just reenlisted in 2004, just days before being killed. But, reporting that would have exposed Cindy Sheehan for the fraud she is.
Casey Sheehan was a hero. We all owe him a debt. And that debt is to make his sacrifice meaningful by winning. It’s tragic every time we lose one of these incredibly brave, selfless men in battle. But, it’s worth placing it in context. The facts are that, in an average year, 1286 U.S. servicemen die in accidents and other causes associated with their service. Peace is just about as dangerous as war these days. But, the press will never tell you that. It doesn’t sell advertising.