The one where I play Wonkette

I’m sorry but I fail to see what this proposal has to do with Hillary Clinton’s imperial ambitions.

This Powerline post by John “Jonah Jameson” is a gem:

Cindy Sheehan: is she a poor, benighted woman unhinged and rendered irrational by grief, or is she a calculating, vicious anti-Semite and anti-American

Tim,
Either Cindy Sheehan didn’t say those things and FrontPage and PowerLine might be up for a libel suit, or she did say them and their analysis is spot on. I wonder why the major news outlets aren’t reporting the juicier parts of her ramblings? Could it be because those quoted statements make her sound batshit crazy? If she’s friends with organizations that want to free US voters from “undue influence” of Israel, then that kind of makes her a Jew conspiracy theorists right up their with (drum roll please) Hitler. Okay, just kidding about Hitler, but certainly on par with US neo-nazis ;)

“Either Cindy Sheehan didn’t say those things and FrontPage and PowerLine might be up for a libel suit, or she did say them and their analysis is spot on.”

Goodness, Cindy Sheehan once associated with somebody who criticized Israeli policy toward the Palestinians? Well, I guess she MUST be an ant-semite!

Matt Weiner,
Perhaps her stretch to bash Israel in something that doesn’t involve Israel could be deemed anti-sementic, or perhaps not. When people are talking about crime and use that as a stick to bash minorities, I usually think they are harboring some racism. But whatever.

criticizing Israel’s…occupation of territory…

Where exactly can Israel exist without “occupying territory”? Meta-territory? Non-space? The past, perhaps?

…is not anti-Semitism.

Not necessarily anti-Semitism, you mean.

Occupying the Occupied Territories or the West Bank and Gaza, or whatever you want to call it. Whatevs, dipnut.

And yes, I don’t want to make an argument from ignorance–the fact that the PowerLine post provides no evidence that Sheehan is anti-Semitic rather than critical of some Israeli policies doesn’t mean that it’s impossible that Sheehan is anti-Semitic. That could be said of anyone for whom there’s no evidence of anti-Semitism–you, for instance. But it is extremely rude to suggest that someone is anti-Semitic on no evidence whatsoever.

“Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy…not for the real reason, becuase the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn’t changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq…in fact it has gotten worse.”
For that to be anti-Semitic it would have to be:

a) False, and said only to create and arouse hatred and negativity toward Israel.
b) True, but said only for the reasons above.

It’s pretty obvious she said it because she was outraged that her son died for reasons that were shown to be lies and in a cause that has become obviously not what the public’s been told it was. Once the lie ‘s exposed the truth should be brought forward. Has it been?
Calling Cindy Sheehan anti-Semitic, or dismissing what she said as anti-Semitic, does nothing to refute the charge she made.

It’s really unfortunate that a less politically batshit woman who lost her son couldn’t be the face of the anti-war movement.

Fortunately for her, she can never aspire to be as “politically batshit” as the non-sacrificing pro-war movement so eager to cheapen charges like anti-Semitism, slime grieving widows and diminish the tragedy of war for its own imagined momentary benefit. Far as I’m concerned, she could be biting the heads off of bats and declaring her allegiance to Cthulhu, and she’d still be a more admirable and congenial figure than your average 101st Fighting Keyboarder.

I realize it’s a lot to ask, but then Cindy Sheehan’s just one individual, so while she’s “…quell[ing] suspicions that she’s exploiting her son’s dead corpse to beat her own political hobby horses…” maybe you could quell some of the rapidly intensifying suspicion that she’s right. That it was neocon agenda, that that is also the only rational explanation for Tony Blair’s rabid support of the invasion – that he’s been ratpacked by the neocons.
And that the brink of nuclear war we’re being led directly toward now is part of that same neocon agenda.
The world will thank you, Mr. Ridgeway, the world will be in your debt forever should you perform that service.

I would love to quell such suspicions, but at this point trying to convince the left that their wasn’t a nefarious neoconservative neoconspiracy led by a neoconservative kabal of diabolical neoconservative neocons, would be as fruitless as trying to convince them in general of the absence of a global zionist world order that has a stranglehold on the mainstream media and uses as a tool to bring about Israeli world domination. I would have an easier task of convincing scientists of the absence of gravity.

But if your response is any indicator, any ulterior motives Ms. Sheehan might have will loser her no stock with at least a portion of her supporters and may even give her a boost with certain crowds.

Cindy Sheehan may not be anti-Semitic. But anti-Semites, oddly enough, make the exact same arguments she makes. So I can understand why some people, perhaps unfairly, are making that charge.

———————————

Why Cindy Sheehan is Right!
By David Duke

Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost a son in the Iraq War, is determined to prevent other mothers and fathers from experiencing the same loss.

Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media to demand a meeting with him and a good explanation why her son and other’s sons and daughters must die and be disfigured in a war for Israel rather than for America.

Recently, she had the courage to state the obvious that her son signed up in the military to protect America not to die for Israel.

In a recent letter to “Nightline,” she wrote the following hard-hitting words:

“Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy…not for the real reason, because the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn’t changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq…in fact it has gotten worse.”

Now, a gauntlet of personal attacks has been let out against her. A recent article on David Horowitz’s FrontPage and repeated by many pro-Israel zealots dares to compare her with that incorrigible American, me. Here is a FrontPage reader’s commentary published in the Lonestar Times.

“…(Sheehan) voiced vaguely anti-Semitic rhetoric when she alleged that the Iraq War was all about protecting Israel, i.e. a Jewish conspiracy (a similar opinion is frequently expressed by David Duke and his ilk).” – From the Lonestar Times August, 13, 2005

In truth, Cindy Sheehan is absolutely right. Her son signed up in the military to defend America, not Israel, and to safeguard our own democracy, not the democracy of some foreign nation that neither wants nor needs it. In advancing this war for Israel, government and media advocates obviously couldn’t get Americans behind the war by saying it was a war for Israel. They had to make up bogus reasons for the war, such as saying that Iraq was an imminent threat to America and that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Now that these lies have been exposed, they have changed the rationale for the war to “fighting for democracy” and “fighting against terrorism.”

I take anti-Semitism personally, and I don’t appreciate cynics like Powerline and Jet blurring these distinctions.

There are no distinctions. The current newspeak meaning of the word ‘anti-Semitism’ is roughly ‘opposition to Likud’. Likud defends the Jews against persecution, against another holocaust; thus by opposing the Likud you’re wishing for the next holocaust. That’s all there’s to it.

It’s a simple choice: you’re either pro-Likud or you’re an anti-Semite. It’s exactly the same as with being either pro-Bush or anti-American traitor. I don’t perceive ‘anti-Semitism’ or ‘anti-Americanism’ as a something negative anymore.

One shouldn’t play these games, one should resist. Write “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER” a few times in your diary and you’ll feel better.

From dictionary.com

an·ti-A·mer·i·can (nt–mr-kn, nt-)
adj.

Opposed or hostile to the government, official policies, or people of the United States.

anti-american

adj : opposed to the United States and its policies [syn: anti-American] [ant: pro-American]

Yes, Mrs. Sheehan lost her son while he was doing something he probably believed in (given that he had just reenlisted). But that doesn’t change the fact that her speech meets a certain dictionary definition. Don’t blame the people for saying Mrs. Sheehan’s words were anti-american, blame the dictionary for having such a hurtful, mean, and un-PC term.

Opposed or hostile to the government, official policies, or people of the United States.

Awesome! So, like, the Republicans who didn’t like Clinton’s “official policies” were in fact anti-American scumbags, right?

The dictionary definition of Anti-American is too broad to make it meaning, isn’t it?

abb1 – I tried taking your suggestion, but it keeps coming out as “I LOVE BIG BROTHER”. Is something wrong with my hands?

That’s the stupidest definition of “anti-American” I’ve ever seen, by the way. Or, rather, it makes clear what a useless waste of breath the term is.

I have never found Google Groups to be wrong (since I use Yahoo groups).

But Ted’s right. A mother who’s just lost her son in Iraq probably deserves more than a cruel game of telephone where every reporting blog adds something else “evile” that she’s supposedly said.

Jet, 39 was genuinely classy. Big ups.

Ted, good catch. Isn’t it nice to know we’ll never hear that quote repeated again, unless someone finds a better source? (Here’s a working link to the CNN transcript.)

Incidentally, people are now talking about Cindy Sheehan’s taxes over at the Wall Street Journal.

So maybe this fake letter isn’t fake after all.