Cindy Sheehan: 'I almost feel sorry for Bush' and 'Hillary's record has been sanitized'

By Robert Laurie —— Bio and Archives August 31, 2016

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If you were paying attention during the Bush years, you'll no doubt remember Cindy Sheehan. After losing her son in Iraq, she became the left's anti-war focal point. Almost overnight, she found herself a staple of the 24-hour news nets and a regular Sunday morning guest. She camped out in front of Bush's home, marched, spoke wherever possible, and never missed an opportunity to decry "Bush's imperial war for oil." Now, in a new op-ed titled "I led the anti-war movement against George W. Bush 11 years ago. Hillary Clinton is hardly better," Sheehan attacks Hillary's "sanitized" record, tears into the biased media, and admits she almost feels sorry for the former President. As she puts it:

Since Bush has left office (in the orderly and lawful way, not in handcuffs) and we're almost through with the two-terms of the current War President, I almost feel sorry for Bush. (Almost, I said). Where's the outcry against Obama's wars? The occupy movement did not address these issues. I have tried to hold three protest camps since Obama has been president. Instead of thousands of people, there were tens in attendance. The current POTUS electoral circus we find ourselves in is interesting only for the fact that this is truly the weirdest election I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. While Donald Trump’s rhetoric is being scrutinized and analyzed, Hillary Clinton’s actual record of support for war, war, and more war, has been sanitized. The “super-star” of 2016, Bernie Sanders, had a very weak foreign policy position, too. This sadly tells me that my fellow Americans' compassion for others is practically non-existent.

She's certainly right about the media (and her movement) failing to scrutinize Obama and Hillary the way they do non-Democrats. However, she misses one big point: She was never a "leader" of anything. Sheehan was useful, she was initially sympathetic, and she was decent in front of a camera. So, the left made her the poster child of the anti-Bush, anti-Republican, effort.

For Sheehan, the anti-war fervor may have been just that - anti-war. But, for most of the people in the Democrat party, it wasn't. Oh sure, they may hate the military, and they certainly got a kick out of re-living the 60's, but the anti-war proclamations were never as important as creating a wedge issue to use against political opponents. If the last eight years (particularly the illegal war in Libya and its disastrous fallout) have shown us anything, it's that Democrats don't really care about whether our military actions are legal or successful. They only care that they serve the Democrat agenda. Sheehan may think she was in the driver's seat but, in reality, she was simply the left's prop-du-jour. She represented the device with which they attacked their enemies. Once those enemies were gone, the device - and the movement - was no longer needed. In short, willing though she was, they used her. Sheehan, who says she wakes up every day and asks herself "what can I do today to collapse this evil empire," didn't see the same kind of virulent anti-war outrage during the Obama administration because the hypocrites who created it during the Bush years have no interest in sullying their President. "The movement" was a sham.