Pat Buchanan: “Cindy Sheehan May Be The Catalyst Of Crisis For The Bush Presidency”

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 8:10am

Wow. Even Pat Buchanan thinks the president is going down--and that "neocons are leading conservatives and America to disaster."

==

Cindy Sheehan: Anti-war catalyst

Posted: August 17, 2005

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Patrick J. Buchanan
© 2005 Creators Syndicate Inc.

When he flew off to San Clemente, Calif., in the summer of 1969 for his August vacation, Richard Nixon was riding a wave of popularity.

He had announced the first troop withdrawal from Vietnam. He had met the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on touchdown in the Pacific. He had become the first president to visit a captive nation with a triumphal tour of Bucharest. And he had just proposed a sweeping reform of welfare praised by both parties.

But when Nixon returned in September, a storm had broken. Wrote David Broder: "It is becoming more obvious with each passing day that the men and the movement that broke Lyndon Johnson's authority in 1968 are out to break Richard Nixon in 1969.

"The likelihood is great that they will succeed again."

They did not succeed in breaking Nixon's presidency. He broke them. The crucial moment was his "Great Silent Majority" speech of Nov. 3, 1969, which rallied Middle America behind his war policy.

George W. Bush is approaching a similar moment of truth. And Cindy Sheehan may be the catalyst of crisis for the Bush presidency.

As a Gold Star mother of a soldier son slain in Iraq, Sheehan has authenticity and moral authority. Wedded to the passion of her protest, these make her a magnet for a bored White House press corps camped in Crawford for August. Cindy and the president are the only stories in town. And as a source of daily derogatory commentary on the president, Sheehan is using the media, and the media are using her, for the same end: to bedevil George W. Bush.

They are succeeding. When one considers the non-stop cable TV coverage given the mother of Natalie Holloway, the Alabama teen missing in Aruba, Cindy Sheehan will soon be a household name. The more media she attracts, the more people she draws to Crawford. The more people who join Cindy in Crawford, the more media coverage they will attract. It is hard to see what breaks this cycle before Labor Day and the president's return.

The purity of Sheehan's protest has lately been diluted by her association with the far Left, the extravagance of her language and the arrival of political operatives to manipulate and manage her. But in a slow news month, Cindy Sheehan has helped turn the focus of national debate back to the war, at a moment of special vulnerability for the president.

According to Newsweek, support for Bush's handling of the war has fallen for the first time below 40 percent – to 34 percent, with 61 percent now disapproving of his war leadership. Compare these numbers to the 68 percent support Nixon commanded on Vietnam after that Nov. 3 address, and the gravity of Bush's condition becomes evident.

Put bluntly, the bottom is falling out of support for the commander in chief. What is remarkable is that no Democrat has stepped forward, as Gene McCarthy did, to lead an anti-war crusade and call for a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Cindy Sheehan is filling that vacuum.

As the White House seems to be losing control of the debate, our war leaders no longer seem to be singing from the same song sheet. When the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Casey, spoke of "substantial" withdrawals of U.S. forces by spring, with Rumsfeld beside him, he was contradicted by Bush who dismissed this as "speculation" and reportedly rebuked.

To most Americans, it seems apparent that the United States and its allies do not have the boots on the ground to grind down and defeat this Sunni-jihadist insurgency. Yet, no one is talking about sending more U.S. combat brigades. How, then, do you win the war?

"As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" is President Bush's exit strategy. But how can the Iraqis the U.S. Army is training defeat an enemy the U.S. Army has itself been unable to defeat in two years?

Americans do not want an endless no-win war, but they also do not want to cut and run, or walk away and leave a debacle, when they believe that 1,850 Americans have died and 13,000 have been wounded in a noble cause. If President Bush cannot describe "victory" in terms convincing enough to Americans willing to spend blood indefinitely, he will have to persuade them to stay the course by describing what a disaster defeat will mean for Iraq and for America's position in the world.

But to do that would raise a question: Why, then, in heaven's name, did America take such a risk, when Iraq was never a threat?

September could see the coalescing of an anti-war movement that both bedevils the White House and divides a Democratic Party that seeks to benefit from a losing war, without having to offer a plan to win it or end it, without being held accountable for having supported it, or responsible for undercutting it.

Our politics appear likely to become even more poisoned when the president returns from his troubled vacation.

--

Pat Buchanan's newest book, "Where the Right Went Wrong," tells how neocons are leading conservatives and America to disaster ... and what we must do now to save our country and our cause.
Cindy Sheehan: Anti-war catalyst

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 10:07am

What is truly great about what Sheehan is doing is that this is bringing out everyone's true colors.

I'm so glad that SOMEONE is speaking out--truly making a statement in a country that has almost become too difficult to do so with all the saturation of spin and cover up and yelling back and forth, etc.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 11:21am

Cindy Sheehan is a true patriot and a right-on sister, single-handedly reviving the apatahetic anti-war movement. The Democrats need to pull their thumbs out of their asses and pay attention to this woman.

Updated On: 8/18/05 at 11:21 AM

[MagicToDo82]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 11:24am

Thank Goodness someone finally spoke up. Go Cindy!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 1:38pm

Intersting responses, but am I the only one who thinks it's even more significant that an arch-conservative like Pat Buchanan would be saying this?

[robbiej]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 1:52pm

I don't find it odd, PJ, because Buchanan has been dead set against this war from the very beginning.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 2:02pm

True, but it's still delicious.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 2:03pm

I have never really liked Pat Buchanan because of his homophobia, but the man is consistent, what he says he believes. Bush and his administration are hypocrites. The quotes posted show that they say one thing and then do another.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 3:39pm

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 4:14pm

Not at all strange that Pat's saying this. His anti-Semitism has always put him at odds with the largely pro-Israel neocons.

eta: of course, it's always funny to look at the photo after someone doused him with salad dressing. Updated On: 8/18/05 at 04:14 PM

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 8/18/05 at 4:33pm

Posted: 8/18/05 at 10:19pm

Love it.

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 8/19/05 at 2:37pm