JOLLY DAYS

Sheehan

A great discussion at Lehrer about Cindy Sheehan:

TOM OLIPHANT: …the phenomenon has gone beyond Mrs. Sheehan…because of what she evoked as an American reaction not to the war itself but to President Bush's problems in talking about the war, in explaining what's going on and telling us how much it's going to cost and telling us what's going to happen next. There is a disconnect in the dialogue between the government and the people on the war…

BILL KRISTOL: I think the left has found a new weapon to oppose the president and the war, and that weapon is martyrdom, and they are using the death of a soldier in this case and the mother's grief over that death to try to, obviously, rally support, as Mrs. Sheehan has made perfectly clear to get the troops out of Iraq. Her complaint isn't that we aren't grieving enough over these young men and women who have died; it's that President Bush isn't following her preferred policy alternative…Are we going to now pull out competing mothers, competing widows?…it's just grotesque…

Oliphant is right that Bush has been incapable of speaking with depth and insight about the war in Iraq. It is his biggest failure and it could destroy the good he might have done. But Kristol is right as well in talking about the push for surrender in the swarming support around Cindy Sheehan.