When George W. Bush was President, ABC and Charles Gibson, like most media members, couldn't get enough of anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan.
Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, the host of "World News Tonight" is no longer interested in Sheehan, even telling WLS radio in Chicago, "Enough already."
I guess she served her purpose as reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Thursday:
On Monday’s Newsroom program, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez tried to justify that Cindy Sheehan is still worth covering, as the unrelenting left-wing activist recently protested near the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush. When Republican strategist Rich Galen advised that she should stop protesting and that the press ignore her, Sanchez went out of his way to find an angle for covering her.
Sanchez brought on Galen and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona to discuss the Sheehan protest during the bottom half of the 3 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program. He first asked Cardona, “Should she [Sheehan] let it go?” The strategist answered by putting her cause in the wider context of all the parents of servicemen who were killed during the Iraq war. When she concluded her answer by asking rhetorically, “who are we to say yes or no” to Sheehan, Galen jumped in and replied, “I can say yes or no. The answer’s no, I’m afraid.”
The Democratic National Convention hasn't even begun, and the protestors are out trying to Recreate 68.
For those unfamiliar, the group "was created for all the grassroots people who are tired of being sold out by the Democratic Party," and are gathering in Denver to "resist a two-party system that allows imperialism and racism to continue unrestrained."
High profile activists such as Cindy Sheehan and Cynthia McKinney have already joined the festivities.
On Sunday, Fox News's Griff Jenkins tried to speak to these folks as they marched in Denver, but was instead verbally assaulted (video embedded below the fold courtesy of our friend Johnny Dollar, vulgarity warning, photo courtesy Rocky Mountain News):
The AP gives us a story about some so-called documentary about what evil befell the poor folks of Crawford, Texas, after Governor George W. Bush bought his ranch property there.I'll start right out with the key section that pretty much describes what we're dealing with, a quote by the director of this film. "I wanted to do a film indicting Bush for this political stagecraft, using this town as a prop." A guy that wanted to exploit the kind folks of Crawford, Texas is being presented as a wonderful fellow by the press? Say it isn’t so!
Naturally, the AP is in sympathy for the poor folks of Crawford who had the misfortune of becoming Bush's hometown. So, now a man can't even buy a house without it being the most evil thing any one has ever done, eh?
The mainstream media (ABC, NBC, CBS, New York Times, CNN, etc) have made their opposition to the US campaign against Islamic terror, particularly the current Iraq campaign a centerpiece of their coverage almost since the beginning. Current headline stories include complaints that not enough bodies are available to graveyards and complaints that not enough US soldiers are killing their commanders, a practice known as 'fragging'. Further examples of the media's partisanship include their constant hero-worship of people like Cindy Sheehan and their ignoring of other soldiers' parents who still support the campaign and the President. Today, a group of Code Pink protestors assembled in front of Berkeley's Marine recruiting office to protest, but unfortuantely for them, they were far outnumbered by pro-military supporters, who gathered across Shattuck Avenue. As the Contra Costa Times reported:
The mainstream media’s coverage of the antiwar march in Washington, DC did its best to ignore the extreme Left views that were on display at the protest. A split-second image at the very beginning of Saturday evening’s NBC Nightly News showed some of the extreme views that were on display on signs, which included a call for the impeachment of President Bush for "war crimes," and a sign that cried "9/11 Truth Now!" The full NBC Nightly News report on the march devoted almost a minute to footage of the antiwar marchers, and only 15 seconds to comments from one of the pro-Iraq war counter-protesters who lined the march route. Anyone who tuned in would have to look carefully for any sign of radical views.
Video: Real (1.6 MB) or Windows (1.3 MB), plus MP3 (618 KB)
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post covered the march in their Sunday editions. However, they ignored some of the radical statements that were made from the stage at the antiwar rally before the march. The photos that accompanied both the print edition and online versions of the articles also glossed over the extreme views that were expressed on signs and banners at the march.
Michael A. Fletcher of the Washington Post has a little snippet of a story so full of hyperbole about how wonderful and "crystallizing" so-called "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan has been for the country that unintentional comedy is the result -- that or it raises a collective groan for its slobbering sycophancy. He so outlandishly exaggerates the impact of the "antiwar hero" and her protégé in "Camp Casey" that it just boggles the mind. Seems like Fletcher is far from a disinterested "journalist" but has succumbed to outright hero worship here.
I say "little snippet" of a story because it is one of those entries containing several short snippets of political news, the Sheehan story being one of them. But, befitting Fletcher's obviously smitten condition with "grieving mother" Sheehan, it is the largest entry in the article.