From Frank Rich's NY Times Column:

Hat Tip Dan Gillmor.

CINDY SHEEHAN couldn't have picked a more apt date to begin the vigil that ambushed a president: Aug. 6 was the fourth anniversary of that fateful 2001 Crawford vacation day when George W. Bush responded to an intelligence briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" by going fishing. On this Aug. 6 the president was no less determined to shrug off bad news. Though 14 marine reservists had been killed days earlier by a roadside bomb in Haditha, his national radio address that morning made no mention of Iraq. Once again Mr. Bush was in his bubble, ensuring that he wouldn't see Ms. Sheehan coming. So it goes with a president who hasn't foreseen any of the setbacks in the war he fabricated against an enemy who did not attack inside the United States in 2001.

When these setbacks happen in Iraq itself, the administration punts. But when they happen at home, there's a game plan. Once Ms. Sheehan could no longer be ignored, the Swift Boating began. Character assassination is the Karl Rove tactic of choice, eagerly mimicked by his media surrogates, whenever the White House is confronted by a critic who challenges it on matters of war. The Swift Boating is especially vicious if the critic has more battle scars than a president who connived to serve stateside and a vice president who had "other priorities" during Vietnam.

The most prominent smear victims have been Bush political opponents with heroic Vietnam resumes: John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry. But the list of past targets stretches from the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke to Specialist Thomas Wilson, the grunt who publicly challenged Donald Rumsfeld about inadequately armored vehicles last December. The assault on the whistle-blower Joseph Wilson - the diplomat described by the first President Bush as "courageous" and "a true American hero" for confronting Saddam to save American hostages in 1991 - was so toxic it may yet send its perpetrators to jail.

True to form, the attack on Cindy Sheehan surfaced early on Fox News, where she was immediately labeled a "crackpot" by Fred Barnes. The right-wing blogosphere quickly spread tales of her divorce, her angry Republican in-laws, her supposed political flip-flops, her incendiary sloganeering and her association with known ticket-stub-carrying attendees of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Rush Limbaugh went so far as to declare that Ms. Sheehan's "story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real."

But this time the Swift Boating failed, utterly, and that failure is yet another revealing historical marker in this summer's collapse of political support for the Iraq war.

As usual Rich pulls no punches...

Read it all. It demonstrates an all to clear pattern of abuse on the part of this Administration, abuse of power, abuse of the truth, abuse of the trust of the American Public. It also demonstrates further the sense of invulnerability that this administration feels. And rightfully so. They have successfully used the same tactic again and again and again...

But as Rich says:

When the Bush mob attacks critics like Ms. Sheehan, its highest priority is to change the subject. If we talk about Richard Clarke's character, then we stop talking about the administration's pre-9/11 inattentiveness to terrorism. If Thomas Wilson is trashed as an insubordinate plant of the "liberal media," we forget the Pentagon's abysmal failure to give our troops adequate armor (a failure that persists today, eight months after he spoke up). If we focus on Joseph Wilson's wife, we lose the big picture of how the administration twisted intelligence to gin up the threat of Saddam's nonexistent W.M.D.'s.

The hope this time was that we'd change the subject to Cindy Sheehan's "wacko" rhetoric and the opportunistic left-wing groups that have attached themselves to her like barnacles. That way we would forget about her dead son. But if much of the 24/7 media has taken the bait, much of the public has not.

this time the vast majority of the American Public is NOT buying it. The very principle of repeating something often enough until it becomes truth, has backfired. The American Public has been hearing about Administration lies and manipulation for years now, and the idea is finaly starting to sink in...

The majority of Americans feel compassion for Cindy Sheehan. While her protractors are vocal, the majority see her as a Mother grieving over the loss of a son, who is entitled to her moment with the President. His fundraising, vacationing and grandstanding with Lance Armstrong have come across as callous and heartless, at the very moment when he needs to be explaining some things not only to Sheehan, but to the whole nation. Bush ran the first time as a Straight Talk candidate. Those of us who watched the campaign from the Left, never bought this in the first place, but a lot of people did. His failure to provide Americans with a straight answer on the debacle in Iraq has eroded American confidence in him, and his administration. It does not help his case when his Generals are saying one thing, His SecDef another and Vice President something entirely different altogether.

Recent poll numbers more than anything, demonstrate a lack of confidence on the part of the American Public in ANYTHING having to do with Iraq, and rightfully so...

The attacks on Sheehan have only made the matter worse. I predict that Bush will eventually meet with Sheehan, calls to do so from within his own party have made this a nearly forgone conclusion. The delays at this point are more than likely based on Karl Rove trying to determine the best way to spin a lose/lose situation for Bush.

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.grupo-utopia.com/blog/mt/mt-tb.cgi/716

Posted by: Jay Tea at August 22, 2005 06:54 PM

Posted by: David Anderson at August 22, 2005 08:37 PM

Posted by: Jay Tea at August 22, 2005 09:23 PM

Posted by: David Anderson at August 22, 2005 09:43 PM

Posted by: Jay Tea at August 23, 2005 03:27 AM