I don't like to dwell on stuff like this unless I can't help it. So I tried to ignore the pathetic picture in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer of one Cindy Sheehan, who believes that she can end the Iraq War by meeting with President Bush. I looked at her picture (another one at Drudge) and found myself suspecting that her purpose might not be to reason with Bush and present logical arguments against the war (as is claimed), but, rather, to scold him. While the newspapers and the MSM have portrayed her as a grieving mother with legitimate questions for the president, the new reports have been rather long on descriptions of the mother and her plight, but short on the specific details of her questions.

To find these details, I had to look in places other than the Inquirer and the New York Times.

According to Indymedia, as of August 7 (the date national media attention was drawn to her visit to Crawford), Ms. Sheehan lists the following questions for President Bush:

Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, is holding vigil in Crawford, Texas until she gets a meeting with George Bush. She has some simple questions to ask him: “Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for? If the cause is so noble, why don’t you send your twins?” She also has a clear demand: “Honor our sacrifices by bringing our nation's sons and daughters home from a war based on lies and deceptions.”

On Saturday, as Cindy marched towards the ranch where Bush is vacationing for 33 days, she and her supporters, including CODEPINK cofounder Diane Wilson, were stopped by local sheriffs, who pushed them into a ditch with fire ants in 100 degree heat. Cindy was undeterred: “I am not leaving until I meet with George Bush and he answers my questions about the death of my son. This is the beginning of the end of the war in Iraq,” she said. (Emphasis added.)

Regardless of whether Bush should be forced to answer these questions (or submit to a Nuremburg-style tribunal), what I'd like to know is why weren't all three, very simple questions listed in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer? The primary question (why Bush killed her son) was dropped entirely along with the second question, leaving only her third question about whether the Bush daughters have been encouraged to enlist:

Sheehan has spent several days talking to reporters, hugging fellow protesters, and taking brief breaks to eat sandwiches and fruit from supporters.

Although she does not expect Bush to meet with her in Crawford, she says that if he did, she would ask him whether he has encouraged his twin daughters to enlist.

"I want him to quit using my son's death to justify more killing," she said. "The only way he can honor my son's death is to bring the troops home."

This New York Times piece on Sheehan is more than twice as long as the Inquirer's, and, although it calls her case "compelling," also inexplicably fails to mention Ms. Sheehan's most pressing questions.

What is going on here? Why is the MSM editing the most important questions which this latest anti-war celebrity wanted to ask? And why is it that only Drudge seems to be reporting this statement from the rest of the Sheehan family?

The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.

Sincerely,

Casey Sheehan's grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins.

Developing...

Drudge might be "developing," but is anyone else? Considering the disappearance of the story from Ms. Sheehan's local (Vacaville) newspaper's website, I'd swear the rest of the family's story is being suppressed.

Intrigued by all of this intrigue, I began to wonder whether Ms. Sheehan has previously had other questions for Bush, which might also not be getting the attention they deserve.

Sure enough, her campaign goes back to at least November of 2004. If you Google the name "Sheehan" along with the phrase "AN OPEN LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH," and you'll get links to the following widely circulated letter (which turns up at web sites like these):

November 4, 2004

Dear George,

You don’t mind if I call you George do you?

When you sent me a letter offering your condolences on the death of my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq, you called me Cindy, so I naturally assume we are on a first name basis.

George, it has been seven months today since your reckless and wanton foreign policies killed my son, my big boy, my hero, my best-friend: Casey. It has been seven months since your ignorant and arrogant lack of planning for the peace murdered my oldest child.

It has been two days since your dishonest campaign stole another election…but you all were way more subtle this time than in 2000, weren’t you? You hardly had to get the Supreme Court of the United States involved at all this week.

You feel so proud of yourself for betraying the country again, don’t you? You think you are very clever because you pulled the wool over the eyes of some of the people again. You think that you have some mandate from God…that you can “spend your political capital” any way that you want.

George you don’t care or even realize that 56,000,000 plus citizens of this country voted against you and your agenda. Still, you are going to continue your ruthless work of being a divider and not a uniter. George, in 2000 when you stole that election and the Democrats gave up, I gave up too.

I had the most ironic thought of my life then: "Oh well, how much damage can he do in four years?" Well, now I know how much you have damaged my family, this country, and this world.

If you think I am going to allow you another four years to do even more damage, then you truly are mistaken. I will fight for a true vote count and if that fails, your impeachment. Also, the impeachment of your Vice President. The only thing is, I'm not politically savvy, and I don't have a Karl Rove to plan my strategy, but I do have a big mouth and a righteous cause, which still mean something in this country, I hope.

All of this lying, fooling, and betraying must be “hard work” George. You really think you know what hard work is?

George, let me tell you what “hard work” really is.

Hard work is seeing your oldest son, your brave and honorable man-child go off to a war that had, and still has, no basis in reality. Hard work is worrying yourself gray and not being able to sleep for 2 weeks because you don’t know if your child is safe.

Hard work is seeing your son’s murder on CNN one Sunday evening while you’re enjoying the last supper you’ll ever truly enjoy again.

Hard work is having three military officers come to your house a few hours later to confirm the aforementioned murder of your son…your first born…your kind and gentle sweet baby.

Hard work is burying your child 46 days before his 25th birthday. Hard work is holding your other three children as they lower the body of their big “baba” into the ground. Hard work is not jumping in the grave with him and having the earth cover you both.

But, Dear George, do you know what the hardest work of all is? Trying to digest the fact that the leader of the country that your family has fought for and died for, for generations, lied to you and betrayed your dear boy’s sense of honor and exploited his courage and exploited his loyalty to his buddies.

Hard work is having your country abandon you after they killed your son. Hard work is coming to the realization that your son had his future robbed from him and that you have had your son's future and future grand-children stolen from you. Hard work is knowing that there are so many people in this world that have prospered handsomely from your son's death.

George, I must confess that I and my family worked very HARD to re-defeat you this time, but you refuse to stay defeated. Well, we are watching you very carefully. We are going to do everything in our power to have you impeached for misleading the American people into a disastrous war and for mis-using and abusing your power as Commander-in-Chief.

We are going to scream until our last breath to bring the rest of our babies home from this quagmire of a war that you have gotten our country in to: before too many more families learn the true meaning of Hard Work. We know it is going to be an uphill battle, knowing how Republican Congress is, but thanks to you, we know the meaning of Hard Work and we’re not afraid of hard work at all.

The 56,000,000 plus citizens who voted against you and your agenda have given me a mandate to move forward with my agenda. Also, thanks to you and your careless domestic policies, I am unemployed, so this will be my full-time job. Being your political downfall will be the most noble accomplishment of my life and it will bring justice for my son and 1125 (so far) other brave Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis your lies have killed.

By the way, George, how many more innocent Iraqis are your policies going to kill before you convince them that you are better than Saddam?

How many more of their cities are you going to level before you consider that they are liberated? If you really had any moral values, or if you were an honorable man at all you would resign.

My son was a man who had high moral values and true courage.

Humanity lost a bright light on April 04, 2004.

I will live the rest of my life missing Casey desperately.

Thank you for that, George.

Have a nice day.

God Bless America!! We surely need it!

Cindy Sheehan

Broken hearted mother of a True American Hero:

Spc Casey Austin Sheehan,

KIA 04/04/04 Sadr City, Baghdad

But is it reasonable to expect that by forcing the president to meet with this woman, anything would be accomplished?

I know I wouldn't want to meet with her, and if she was my mom, I'd probably want to get as far away from her as humanly possible.

But I can't speculate about unknowable matters. What I do know is that once again, the full story is not being reported by the mainstream media.

(Am I allowed to thank Indymedia and the various left wing news sites? Or would that be in bad form?)

UPDATE: Notes of a Nervous Harpist has much more (including some very inflammatory remarks by Ms. Sheehan) as well as a factual account of his death, and offers an opinion:

I think this is something that was bound to happen when the son or daughter of a leftwing Bush-hater volunteered to go to war (and I think we can draw some conclusions about whether or not Casey agreed with his mother's agenda from this) and then did not make it back home.

First Sgt. Carson reported that “word got around (at Camp War Eagle) fast that the patrol was in trouble.” He said that their public affairs officer, Captain O'Malley, said this:

"They had guys who normally don't fight who volunteered to help their buddies. There were guys fighting to get on that convoy."

This is substantiated by the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan. She has said that:

“And the sergeant said, 'Sheehan, you don't have to go,' because my son was a mechanic.' And Casey said, 'Where my chief goes, I go.' "

MORE: And here's Instapunk:

This is perversion. And it's time somebody said it out loud. Cindy Sheehan, your son died a hero. Go home now and find some meaning in it that isn't just about you and the politics of those who hate their country.

AND MORE: Joe Gandelman thinks that vicious criticism of Cindy Sheehan will create a backlash (which may well be the case). I try to be respectful of everyone, but I think I've shown that the MSM has not presented the full story. At minimum, from what I've seen they've edited out her number one, highly argumentative question about whether Bush "killed" her son. I think her questions to George W. Bush (as well as her November letter) constitute unreasonable scolding, and I do not think it is vicious to say so.

UPDATE: Commenter Sigivald provides this link to the family statement in question.

And in another story, Mrs. Sheehan has made it clear that she wants more than a meeting with the President; she's demanding that he answer her "questions."

"I don't want his compassion or his sympathy, because I know it's not real," Sheehan said. "What I want is answers to my questions."

Is it possible for anyone to imagine the public reaction to a question like that had it been asked of FDR during World War II?

Were I in President Bush's position, I'd meet with her. (But I don't think she'd like my answers....)

MORE: Here's Jon Henke (with whom I'm inclined to agree):

Nor should the President entertain every grieving mother or agitated activist demanding an audience with the President. Imagine the downward spiral that would create, with every activist group in the country camping on the White House/Crawford lawn until 2009, at which point they'd be replaced by different activists camping on the White House/(somewhere else) lawns.

Ultimately, it's a tragedy that Casey Sheehan died; it's a shame that the President can't meet with Cindy Sheehan without provoking a political PR fight, and a downward spiral of activists demanding audience; but mostly, it's terribly sad that Cindy Sheehan's grief has been turned into a political opportunity for both Republicans and Democrats to take shots at each other.

AND MORE: Be sure to check out Darleen Click's posts on Cindy Sheehan. Darleen thinks Sheehan is a "classic cult victim." And Jeff Goldstein has the goods on the so-called "Crawford Peace House." (Frankly, I'm surprised no one's thought to blame HumVee for Casey Sheehan's death; after all Caterpillar has been blamed for the death of "peace" activist Rachel Corrie. Connect the dots, people!)

UPDATE (08/14/05): The Philadelphia Inquirer's Trudy Rubin, in a Sunday editorial, has not only written President Bush's answer to Cindy Sheehan, she has rewritten Sheehan's question:

[Sheehan] would want to know why 140,000 U.S. soldiers are stuck in Iraq more than two years after the fall of Baghdad. She would demand answers that go beyond "Freedom is on the march."

Who needs news, anyway?

MORE: Connie du Toit reminded me of something I think most of us tend to forget as we obsess over facts: a lot of other mothers are being forgotten.

.... for all the fuss over this one mother, I think we might need to remember the other mothers. Focus away from the mad one and give our time and attention to the others. You know the ones. The ones who say nothing. The ones who, after losing their boys, continue to work with the other families they know—continuing to support the war effort and the families who are shouldering its burdens.

We don’t hear about them. These mothers (and fathers) don’t appear with posters, placards, or slogans. You’ve got to know they cry constantly, but not the tears of crocodiles to gain pity for themselves. They cry in private moments, when they’re alone, when it is dark, when they have a flashing memory of their lost son, and when their tears and grief will not burden others or wear at their resolve.

UPDATE (08/14/05): Via Ann Althouse at InstaPundit, Joe Gandelman now has a much longer post with many links, pro and con. Fair and thorough.

(I particularly liked Dean Esmay sharing an Iraqi mother's perspective on this. But my main objection is not to Cindy Sheehan, but to the MSM's increasingly common omission of important facts.)

In this case, emotion may be at war with facts.

MORE: Speaking of emotional facts, here's Cindy Sheehan, quoted at a speech in Dallas last week by Counterpunch:

“And the other thing I want him to tell me is ‘just what was the noble cause Casey died for?’ Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East. We’re not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT Act. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism,” she exclaimed.

“There, I used the ‘I’ word – imperialism,” the 48 year-old mother quipped. “And now I’m going to use another ‘I’ word – impeachment – because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail.”

As the veterans in Dallas rose to their feet, Sheehan said defiantly, “My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for 2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don’t owe you a penny...you give my son back and I’ll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes) and we’ll put this war on trial.”

UPDATE (08/16/05): I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to be thinking about FDR ("Is it possible for anyone to imagine the public reaction to a question like that had it been asked of FDR during World War II?").

Via Glenn Reynolds, here's Michael Barone:

Question: How much coverage would the press have given a World War II-era Cindy Sheehan who camped outside Hyde Park or Warm Springs demanding to meet with President Roosevelt?

UPDATE (08/18/05): I'm sorry but these remarks by Cindy Sheehan constitute total lunacy -- and it isn't a "vicious right wing attack" to point it out:

"We are not waging a war on terror in this country. We’re waging a war of terror. The biggest terrorist in the world is George W. Bush!"

So declared Cindy Sheehan earlier this year during a rally at San Francisco State University.

Sheehan, who is demanding a second meeting with Bush, stated: "We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now."

Sheehan unleashed a foul-mouth tirade on April 27, 2005:

"They’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites! And we need to, we just need to rise up..." Sheehan said of the Bush administration.

"If George Bush believes his rhetoric and his bullshit, that this is a war for freedom and democracy, that he is spreading freedom and democracy, does he think every person he kills makes Iraq more free?"

"The whole world is damaged. Our humanity is damaged. If he thinks that it’s so important for Iraq to have a U.S.-imposed sense of freedom and democracy, then he needs to sign up his two little party-animal girls. They need to go to this war."

Somewhere Karl Rove must be smiling.

As is so often the case, James Lileks ought to get the last word:

Some people think that any time you argue back, you're Stifling Dissent. For them, merely discussing Ms. Sheehan's views is the rhetorical equivalent of sending her to Abu Ghraib.

....The more the fervent anti-war base embraces these ideas, the more they ensure that no one will trust the left with national security. Ever.

Will they learn the lesson? Even money says Sheehan will be sitting in the Michael Moore seat next to Jimmy Carter at the '08 Democratic convention.

I want to conclude this much-too-long post by asking a very simple question.

How can I be "stifling dissent" by wanting to see it reported?

MORE: Dave Kopel sees the Sheehan affair as involving a failure of the MSM to engage in simple reporting. Instead, they did their best to sanitize Sheehan.

(And now that she's faded from the screen, her full message will remain unreported, in the hope that she'll be remembered as just another ordinary mom who lost a son in Iraq.)