Stand Up Notes From Flyover Country: Cindy Sheehan's Protest is A-Changin'

I like finding examples of left-wing media bias as much as the next guy but I suppose that guy would have to be another right-wing nut job like me in order to enjoy it as much as I do. Anyway, over the weekend I was watching all the hype for the big Obama Afghanistan announcement on Tuesday when I saw a little gem of a news story on Headline News. There she was, the former darling of the left-wing press — Ms. Anti-War herself — Cindy Sheehan, leading a huge war protest in front of Travis Air Force Base outside of Sacramento, CA.

Except Ms. Sheehan’s protest really wasn’t all that huge. It looked like Cindy and about seven or eight of her aging hipster friends had gotten some gas money together, made a few signs and a rented U Haul truck for a trip from the Bay Area up to Sacto. I sometimes confuse Cindy’s pals in Code Pink with the pink hats my mother’s old friends in the Red Hat Society wore. Except the Red Hat ladies are out for fun and the Code Pink gals seem to have gotten out of bed on the wrong side. To be honest, I felt a little sad for Cindy. I think I could get more people over to my house for an Amway meeting. I didn’t see how less than a dozen people doing anything would rate national news time. However, Ms. Cindy was getting more airtime on HLN than the entire 9/12 weekend demonstration did, and though we may disagree about how many folks were there, I think we can all agree it was a little more than twelve.

Maybe she was getting face time because there was a counter protest? One old veteran put on his uniform and came out to confront Ms. Sheehan. This guy of about 80 was giving the protesters a severe tongue lashing. To try to silence his dissent, Ms. Peace and Love put her bullhorn about an inch from his face and started shouting. The old guy batted it away was and was instantly demonized for “slapping” Ms. Sheehan. She was demanding to anyone who would listen that he be arrested for assault. Apparently on Planet Sheehan only she has the right to protest.

Then something odd struck me, she and her Code Pink friends weren’t really protesting the war. They were protesting the use of unmanned drones to kill enemy scumbags. To Ms. Sheehan’s credit, until then she had never quit protesting the war. What happened was that she quit getting coverage. When she would show up in Crawford with her ragtag band of merry pranksters they would be outnumbered by adoring media types ten-to-one. She got her sour puss on all the CNN and MSNBC chat fests. Then Obama, the anti- war President happened and all of the media went away. Her camp out at Martha’s Vineyard this past summer during Mr. Obama’s vacation brought one mention and that was on the evil Fox News.

Now her protest isn’t primarily against the President’s lack of action on his promises to the hard left — oh no! Nor is it against the war itself. Her protest is now Obama friendly! In order to get back in the limelight she isn’t protesting the war per se, she is protesting “drones.” I think she actually said something to the effect that the use of unmanned drones weren’t fair. I guess Ms. Sheehan thinks if we need to clean out some rat hole of terrorists we should do it in a more sporting manner.

Now that she isn’t protesting “the war,” which on Tuesday became President Obama’s war, she is back on the good list with the liberal media. I expect to see Cindy and company all around the liberal media on her tour protesting that mean old Air Force and their use of unfair drones. And I wouldn’t hold my breath for any anti-Obama rhetoric making the edit on the mainstream media outlets!