Cindy Sheehan

I understand too well living in Washington, DC the politics of bereavement. Back in 2002, the Democratic party used the death of Paul Wellstone as a political tool. They called on Republicans to not campaign until after the planned public memorial for Wellstone. However, the day of reverence turned into a poltical rally. Many people walked out and others complained. The election in Minnesota changed overnight and Norm Coleman would go on to defeat Walter F. Mondale.

Turning to a new form of bereavement we have Cindy Sheehan, who is protesting the war in Iraq by camping outside the President's home in Crawford, Texas. She is a mother of a fallen son in Iraq. She is also a liberal political activist with the backing of the most extreme groups on the left (two groups are MoveOn.org and Crawford Peace House, which is dedicated less to the opposition to the war in Iraq than to the belief that Isreal is the source of all evil).

Unlike others who have taken the death of a loved one and used it as a political tool, Sheehan's partisan fight has been revealed rather quickly. Many have began to question her, including family members, also bereaved, that denounced her performance, and other military families have come forward to declare she does not speak for them. Among them has been linda Ryan, whose son, Marine Corporal Marc T. Ryan, was killed in Iraq. "George Bush didn't kill [Cindy Sheehan's] son," she told the Gloucester County Times. "George Bush was my son's commander in chief. My son, Marc, totally believed in what he was doing. She's going about this not realizing how many people she's hurting. When she refers to anyone killed in Iraq, she's referring to my son. She doesn't have anything to say about what happened to my son."

The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is NOT absolute. Cindy Sheehan is only one of thousands of parents that have lost children all over the world. Does her voice rule over all others? Do we accept the moral authority of a pro-Bush mother of a dead Marine?

The problem is that there are so many people who have buried children, and so many more who have had children wounded, and so many more who have children in danger, that their poltical views cannot be uniform. What happens when the opinions behind which they put all of their moral authority collide? When parents and other family members of the dead and wounded disagree about politics, who gets custody of the moral authority? Is the moral authority of Cindy Sheehan compromised by the dissent of her husband, who is also a parent in agony?

Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to attack Sheehan to be mean. My point is to say to all those who take advantage of a death: You must cut this out! We are tired of having our emotions worked on and worked over; tired of the matched sets of dueling relatives, tired of all of these claims on our sympathy, that at the same time defy common sense. The heart breaks for everyone who lost relatives and friends on September 11, as it does for the relatives of the war dead and wounded, as it does for the family of Paul Wallstone. It does not break for MoveOn.org or Crawford Peace House, who have not been heartbroke, except by a string of election reverses, and are using the anguish of other poeple in an effort to turn them around.