Time to Let This One Go
I find myself very tempted to write--and write, and write--about the ongoing Cindy Sheehan story, particularly as I believe it speaks volumes about the media and their lust for any sign of a hippie peace-and-love movement. The media's credulity and its caressing of their subject, despite (as only one example) her well-publicized imputation that some neo-con agenda was behind the 9/11 attacks, is almost beyond belief. So I will say this one last time.
A search today of Google News for the terms "Sheehan" and "meet with her" turned up 1,690 print news stories (a good many, admittedly, local papers picking up AP or Reuters feeds) containing statements along the lines of "Sheehan will continue her protest until Bush agrees to meet with her."
Bush has already met with her.
He invited her and her family to speak with him. Maybe she regrets not confronting him then, I don't know. And heck, if she wants to sit out there and lead a protest, fine. But I see no reason for Bush to meet with her again. Let's say you're going door-to-door collecting for some charity or another. You stop at a house, make your pitch, and maybe get a small donation. As you walk on toward the next house, you stop and reflect, "I should have pressed him harder. I should have gotten more out of him." So you turn around, ring the bell again, and say, "More." Is it a newsworthy event if the person fails to bow to your demand? This is, frankly, a child's behavior: maybe if I ask over and over again, maybe if I ask louder, even scream, I'll get what I want. Enough.
On an unrelated note, I read a letter to the editor in the local paper this morning that quoted a John Donne poem, one of his most familiar works. However, the author chose to recast the piece (it is not a poem, but a piece of prose from his Meditations XVII) into a more modern English, thereby robbing it of much of its character. For the record, the original words are:
A search today of Google News for the terms "Sheehan" and "meet with her" turned up 1,690 print news stories (a good many, admittedly, local papers picking up AP or Reuters feeds) containing statements along the lines of "Sheehan will continue her protest until Bush agrees to meet with her."
He invited her and her family to speak with him. Maybe she regrets not confronting him then, I don't know. And heck, if she wants to sit out there and lead a protest, fine. But I see no reason for Bush to meet with her again. Let's say you're going door-to-door collecting for some charity or another. You stop at a house, make your pitch, and maybe get a small donation. As you walk on toward the next house, you stop and reflect, "I should have pressed him harder. I should have gotten more out of him." So you turn around, ring the bell again, and say, "More." Is it a newsworthy event if the person fails to bow to your demand? This is, frankly, a child's behavior: maybe if I ask over and over again, maybe if I ask louder, even scream, I'll get what I want. Enough.
On an unrelated note, I read a letter to the editor in the local paper this morning that quoted a John Donne poem, one of his most familiar works. However, the author chose to recast the piece (it is not a poem, but a piece of prose from his Meditations XVII) into a more modern English, thereby robbing it of much of its character. For the record, the original words are:
No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
posted by Jeff at 11:21 AM
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