Cindy Finally Get It

Cindy Sheehan celebrated Memorial Day by retiring from the anti-war movement. On her way out she posted a scathing rebuke to the Democrats. Her complaints include that they were mainly interested in her while she was attacking the Republicans. When she started doing the same to the Democrats they lost interest in her. She even noticed that the "Democratic Underground" is partisan.

No kidding. Cindy originally got attention when she camped out near Bush's farm. She was demanding that he meet with her and explain what grand reason her son Casey died for. The press gave her a lot of coverage and the left drooled over her. Here was someone who came across as an ordinary woman motivated by understandable outrage. Pundits announced that she had moral authority over the President. She quickly became the face of the anti-war movement.

Then the Summer ended. Camp Casey was dissolved. Cindy had served her purpose. She no longer had the press lining up to cover her.

Worse, her real politics came out. An old email surfaced indicating that she was anti-Israel and possibly anti-semitic. She started hugging anyone who was anti-Bush including neo-communist Hugo Chavez. By this point she was no longer someone who helped the Democrats.

Then the Democrats took over Congress. This is where they broke completely with Cindy. She is anti-war. They are against "Bush's war" but they also have to look at the bigger picture. If they pass an immediate surrender resolution they will lose a lot of support.

The surprising thing is that it took until now for Cindy to recognize all of this.

Plus, Cindy discovered that the anti-war movement is as much about personalities as anything. Again, this is true of any ideological movement.

It is probably a measure of Cindy's devotion to her cause that she managed to ignore reality as long as she did.

This, along with the recent compromise on the emergency funding bill, is good news for President Bush. For the last three years the anti-war movement made common cause with the Democrats on the basis of Bush hatred. Now that is no longer enough. The anti-war Democrats are not strong enough to force an end to the war. The anti-war people cannot forgive them for this. The anti-war movement is collapsing on itself. That makes Bush stronger.

Possibly it will give him enough time to actually win the war, or at least make enough progress as to make withdrawal undesirable.