Life in George Bush's Texas

“Old South racism lives in Texas town
Billy Ray Johnson was beaten and tossed on top of an ant mound. His four white attackers received a slap on the wrist.
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By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent

June 5, 2005

LINDEN, Texas -- They picked up Billy Ray Johnson outside a convenience store in this East Texas bayou town, a place where Confederate flags fly in some front yards and a mural of barefoot slaves picking cotton greets patrons inside the local post office.

On a cool September night in 2003, they drove the 42-year-old mentally retarded black man to a cow pasture where a crowd of white youths was having a party. They got Johnson drunk, they made him dance, they jeered at him with racial epithets.

Then, according to court testimony, one of Johnson's assailants punched him in the face, knocking him out cold. They tossed his unconscious body into the back of a pickup and dumped him by the side of a dirt road, on top of a mound of stinging fire ants.

Johnson, who family members say functioned at the level of a 12-year-old before the attack, was in a coma for a week. He suffered a brain hemorrhage that slurred his speech, weakened his legs and deprived him of his ability to take care of himself. His body was covered with hundreds of painful ant bites.

Today he lives on public assistance, confined to a nursing home in nearby Texarkana, where his family fears he will have to remain for the rest of his life.

The four young white men convicted of various charges in the incident are confined in the county jail, but not for long. A judge last month sentenced three of the four to terms of 30 days in jail, and the fourth to 60 days.

Even that, however, was more than the jurors who heard two of the cases thought appropriate: They acquitted the defendants of the most serious charges and recommended no jail time at all.

To many African-Americans in Linden, the impoverished county seat of Cass County hard by the Arkansas and Louisiana borders, what happened to Johnson was nothing less than a hate crime, frighteningly reminiscent of the worst racial attacks in the Old South.

"There's people down here doing things to dogs, and they get more than a year in prison," said Lue Wilson, 58, Johnson's cousin and legal guardian. "You'll never get a jury in Cass County to convict a white man for doing something to a black man."

But to many whites here, the incident was simply a story of some "good ole boys" drinking too much and getting out of hand.

"It was a very unfortunate and senseless thing," said Wilford Penny, 73, who last month completed a 6-year term as Linden's mayor. "But I don't think there was anything racial about it. These guys were drinking, and this guy [Johnson] liked to dance. I'm not surprised when they get to drinking and use the n-word. The black boy was somewhere he shouldn't have been, although they brought him out there."

Built on backs of slaves

History weighs heavily on this town founded in the mid-1850s whose long-ago agricultural prosperity was built on the backs of slaves floated up the nearby Red River from Shreveport and New Orleans.

The slave mural in the post office lobby was painted in the 1930s by Victor Arnautoff, a renowned artist of the social realism school, and despite periodic protests from black customers, postal officials say they have no plans to remove it.

Today the word "boy" still falls easily from the lips of some whites when they are referring to African-American men, an indignity that Wilson, a Vietnam veteran and retired steelworker, said he long ago grew accustomed to.

And troubling incidents tinged by race still divide Linden's 2,256 residents, one-fifth of them black and four-fifths of them white.

There was the case in 1994 when a black man who had been dating a white woman was found dead from a gunshot to the groin. And another in 2001, when a black man who had been dating a white woman was found hanging from a tree. Local officials ruled the first case a hunting accident and the second a suicide, despite the persistent doubts of family members and civil rights officials.

"There are a few areas in Texas that have kind of bypassed the civil rights era," said Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas branch of the NAACP. "Linden is one of those. It's an island of the '50s up there."

The Texarkana Gazette, the biggest newspaper in the region, wrote an editorial last month criticizing the light sentences imposed on Johnson's attackers.

"Sad to say," the paper wrote, "most of us agree that if the circumstances were reversed--if four blacks had perpetrated this crime on a white person--things would have turned out differently."

Others, however, see more shades of gray surrounding the Johnson case--and the state of local race relations.

"I think it's unfair to the county to make it a total black-and-white issue," said Tina Richardson, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case and Cass County's only black lawyer. "I know the stigma at this point is that in Cass County it looks like whites are greatly prejudiced against blacks. But you have good and bad no matter what area of the country you're living in.

"There were just as many if not more whites who were displeased at the outcome" of the Johnson case as were content with it, Richardson added.

At the heart of the case

Whether Johnson was victimized because he is black or because he is mentally retarded lies at the heart of the conflicting readings of the case. Witnesses who attended the pasture party on Sept. 27, 2003, gave authorities evidence on both counts.

"Everybody knew [Johnson] was mentally challenged, that he wasn't quite right," said one 23-year-old white resident of Linden who attended the party but spoke on the condition that he not be identified. "He was having a good time, drinking. Then they started making fun of him a little bit, making him dance. It was kind of to have someone to amuse them, to make a monkey out of him."

At one point during the party, Richardson said trial testimony showed, Johnson was directed to stick his hand into a bonfire to remove a burning log--evidence that he was being baited because of his mental disabilities.

But many other witnesses reported that Johnson was also subjected to "a lot of racial slurs," Richardson said.

"It was the n-word," she said, "and there were references made concerning the Ku Klux Klan, asking [Johnson] what he would do if the KKK had come out that night."

As the party wound down after midnight, evidence showed, Christopher Colt Amox, who was 20 at the time, punched Johnson in the mouth, toppling him to the ground. As Johnson lay unconscious, vomiting and gagging, Amox and three other young men--James Cory Hicks, then 24; Dallas Chadwick Stone, then 18; and John Wesley Owens, then 19--debated whether to call an ambulance, authorities said. Instead, they loaded Johnson into a pickup truck and drove him 2 miles down a little-used dirt road, tossing him next to a public dump, on top of the nest of fire ants.

Several hours later, Hicks, who at the time worked as a guard at the Cass County Jail, returned to the scene and called the local sheriff to report that he had found "a man passed out on the ground."

The FBI and local law-enforcement officials investigated the case, and all came to the conclusion that what happened to Johnson was a crime based on his mental incapacity, not his race. Thus no state or federal hate crimes or civil rights charges were lodged.

`Mean-spirited and cruel'

"This was a bunch of guys who were mean-spirited and cruel, and they abused a black man who was retarded," said Malcolm Bales, chief of the criminal division in the U.S. attorney's office in Marshall, Texas, which covers Cass County. "That's terrible. But it doesn't give rise to a federal civil rights case."

Instead, the four attackers were charged with various counts of aggravated assault and injury to a disabled person by omission that could have sent them to prison for up to 10 years. Stone and Owens pleaded guilty to the injury by omission charges and agreed to testify against Amox and Hicks, who opted for jury trials.

The jurors in those cases, three of whom were black, acquitted Amox and Hicks of aggravated assault. Amox was convicted of misdemeanor assault, and Hicks was convicted of injury to a disabled person by omission.

Both juries recommended suspended sentences and probation as punishment. But District Judge Ralph Burgess, using his authority to impose additional jail time, last month sentenced Owens, Stone and Amox to 30 days in jail, and sentenced Hicks to 60 days.

"They were trying to make it out to be like a felony, like they beat him up, and he [Amox] hit him one time," said Michael Spencer, the jury foreman in the Amox trial. "It wasn't like they sat there and kicked him and beat him.

"This wasn't just something where we're all biased and we were going to let these good ole boys go," Spencer added. "But the guy had a job, and we didn't feel he will be any more menace to society. . . . We didn't deem it necessary to put him in the county jail for a year."

Family plans civil claims

But the outcome of the case and the refusal of the authorities to press hate crimes charges against Johnson's attackers have outraged civil rights officials. Johnson's family is planning to file civil claims against the four men, and the NAACP is pressing state and federal officials to assign a special prosecutor to take another look at filing additional charges.

"There's absolutely no question this was a racial case," said the NAACP's Bledsoe. "A bunch of folks got drunk and just happened to have a person of another race do bug dancing and ridicule him. It clearly should have been charged as a hate crime."

Most of the defendants' families declined requests for interviews about the case. But Martha Howell, Hicks' mother, said her son never touched Johnson and didn't deserve to be punished.

"These boys' names are ruined for life," Howell said. "And [Johnson] is better off today than he's ever been in his life. He roamed the streets, the family never knew where he was. Now in the nursing home he's got someone to take care of him."

That is not how Johnson sees it.

As he sat recently in the cramped, stuffy room he shares with another nursing home patient, idly thumbing some faded photos of old junk cars he'd like someday to restore, Johnson was asked how he's feeling these days.

"I want to go home," he said emphatically, in his only words intelligible to a visitor. "Home."

----------”

“Amazing that places like that have not progressed beyond the "Mississippi Burning" type days.

Error in judgment? Doesn't that require that there is cognizant thought process going on in order for a malfunction like that to happen?”

“That part of Texas is so backwards. I was stationed near there in 1992 and 93 and the racism was out front and palpable. I friend of mine was stationed near there in the mid 80's and said that there was a billboard in Texarkana that said "Ni**er don't let the sun set on your ass in Texarkana" How do you defeat backwards thinking like that when it is so ingrained and the education level is so low?”

“You don't. It gets passed down from generation to generation. It's unfortunate.”

“No redneck left behind?”

“Maybe in another 200 years it'll be ok.”

“I don't know, the Serbs held onto their animosity toward Albanians for 500 years.
last edited: 6/09/05 11:53:11 AM”

“One white guy punches a drunk black man and you hand wringers relate this to the President of the United States?

Good luck with that political strategy.”

“It is looking like this missing girl in Aruba investigation is going to spin into case of racism that makes Texas look like the NAACP.

You liberals need to find another demon.

Or at least a political platform. Hahahah”

“Bacpac does have one point here: this stuff was entrenched in parts of Texas long before any of the Bushes made their home in Texas.”

“i hate to agree with bacpac (i mean really hate) loathe. i loathe it. am beside myself with mortification. seriously i hate it



but



what does this have to do with shrub?”

“http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?S=PA&m=3
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/hatewatch/fortherecord.jsp?s=PA
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?S=NJ&m=3
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/hatewatch/fortherecord.jsp?s=NJ
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?S=NY&m=3
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/hatewatch/fortherecord.jsp?s=NY
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?S=WI&m=3
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/hatewatch/fortherecord.jsp?s=WI
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/311765p-266748c.html

Glass Houses?”

“bangboy
A classic case of guilt ridden northeastern liberals enjoying any story that makes them feel superior to the hated southern redneck.”

“Bacpac is right. But, I think the title of the thread was just a more rhetorical swipe at Bush. The story really has nothing to do with him. It's about ignorance and deep seated hate...”

“Just so everybody understands the mentality here, this is perhaps the most operative paragraph in the story:

"It was a very unfortunate and senseless thing," said Wilford Penny, 73, who last month completed a 6-year term as Linden's mayor. "But I don't think there was anything racial about it. These guys were drinking, and this guy [Johnson] liked to dance. I'm not surprised when they get to drinking and use the n-word. The black boy was somewhere he shouldn't have been, although they brought him out there."

Somewhere he shouldn't have been, although they brought him out there.

Yes, things happen all over, but when it happened here, white neighbors turned in the white attackers, who now face considerably stiffer terms than these cretins served.”

“I'm new here, been scrolling through some of these postings and I just don't get it.

What's the connection of this story to W?

Why the f_ck does this story get posted on a backpacking site?”

“Charlie.

I know you're "new" here and all, but we don't like that kind of language on here.

This is a backpacking site, and people of all ages enjoy the site.

I know it's your first time, but please mind your manners and be respectful of others. Potty-mouth is not acceptable.

Thank you.”

“Geom - it is important to remind us that racism is still alive and well, and sustained by bizarre denial.

BTYW: "Life in PersonX's StateX" is a formula that's been played here for a while. Geo was just playing with a formula that's been used before here. The title is not to be taken too seriously.

I rememember seeing some pretty awful things in Texas when I was there, by the way. Like two La Raza activists who were jailed while registering voters in a small town - who were both run over by the same train - in a supposed accident after they supposedly escaped. I witnessed a peaceful picket at the jail a few days later. The sheriff's deputys were intimidating and harassing the picketers... the threat of violence hung thick.”

“r.e. the thread title:

Life in George Bush's Texas
created by: Geobeet on 6/9/05
Life In Lumberzac's Adirondacks
created by: MarkO on 6/9/05
Life in Violin's New Jersey
created by: dayhiker on 6/7/05
Life in Jeb Bush’s Florida
created by: vIoLiN on 6/19/03
Life in Treebeard's New York
created by: WhackO on 5/31/05
Life in Violin's New Jersey
created by: fiddle on 12/7/04
Life In Nigal's Ohio
created by: Nigal on 12/9/04
Life in Hillary Clinton's New York
created by: Cello on 6/19/03”

“Wow, me and Hillary rule New York State! Who'd a thunk it?”

“Thanks sarge, I'll be sure to keep it up then. Isn't this cyberspace? Are you this goofy and prissy in real life? When your ancestors were evolving (and they did) they wouldn't have survived with your sissy ways.

ped oh, nontheless, whatever's been done before with these silly titles it all seems to be done to implicate someone as having something to do with whatever is being discussed. I guess it's all for fun but it is stupid.

Bad people live everywhere. See the above info from the splc.”

“troll,troll,troll your boat”

“Charlie, you're assuming I have ancestors. What evidence do you have of that?”

“Uncheck the little flame icon and these kinds of threads go away.”

“Doesn't one have to check the flame icon after creating an account? It is off by default.”

“violin, you should know =)”

“Trust me.”

“I see that I'm not the only one who's puzzled.”

“Violin is correct.
One must "opt-in" to view fuego threads.”

“Mom to Continue Protest Against War By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 43 minutes ago (off Yahoo News)

CRAWFORD, Texas - Undaunted by counter rallies and even a neighbor's gunshot blasts into the air, a woman whose son died in Iraq said she will continue her anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch for three more weeks.

"We can't give up, no matter hard it gets," Cindy Sheehan said Sunday, more than a week after she started the protest in memory of her 24-year-old son Casey.

Sheehan's makeshift campsite along the road leading to the ranch has grown to more than 100, and hundreds more have stopped by to show their support.

On Sunday, as about 60 in Sheehan's group held a religious service, neighbor Larry Mattlage fired his shotgun twice into the air. Sheriff's deputies and Secret Service agents rushed to his house but did not arrest him.

"I ain't threatening nobody, and I ain't pointing a gun at nobody," Mattlage said. "This is Texas."

Mattlage said he was initially sympathetic toward the demonstrators, but that they have blocked roads in the area and caused traffic problems.

He said he fired his gun in preparation for the dove-hunting season, but when asked if he had another motive, he said, "Figure it out for yourself."

Sheehan, 48, said she was not concerned with her own safety but has told others to be aware that "this could get physical, even though we are peaceful."

"I think we knew of the risks when we came down here," said Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif. "I'm surprised we haven't had more of that since we're in Bush country."

Sheehan says she won't leave "Camp Casey" until Bush meets with her during his monthlong ranch visit, or until his vacation ends. She met with two top Bush administration officials on her first day of the protest.

Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan but has not said if he will meet with her.

Sherry Bohlen of Scottsdale, Ariz., whose son Thor has been in Iraq for a month, drove with two friends to Crawford last week. She didn't leave Sunday as planned.

"This is history in the making, and it's hard to walk away from that," Bohlen said.




Not sure where I read this or maybe someone posted it on here. But supposedly Bush had met with every family that has lost a son,father,wife,daughter in Iraq.
If he has did this woman slip through the cracks or is he preselecting the families to meet with.
last edited: 8/15/05 11:35:17 AM”

“I think he has already met with her once. She just wants to ask him why the war is still going on and why her son died.”

“Ewker, Ewker, Ewker......

Bush HAS met with this woman.
At the time she was fairly satisfied with the meeting.

You need to read more.

She has changed her mind and has become very anti-Bush since that meeting and now wants another meeting.”

“Sell Texas on E-bay while they are all in it. First bid; $39.95.”

“$40.00”

“ok so he has met with her. Glad he did then.

I image losing a family member in Iraq could change your mind about the war.
last edited: 8/15/05 11:47:04 AM”

“Actually it's you who needs to read a little more StoveStomper. Drudge (yes I know your source) took Sheehan's comments out of context from a Vacaville Reporter story.

Here is the complete text: http://www.thereporter.com/search/ci_2923921

Read it and you should be able to see that she was less than happy with her first meeting.”

“violin, you dumba$$, no where in this thread have I said anything about DRUDGE.
Liar.”

“Vile Man can't read very well:

From his own link above:

.....Sincerity was something Cindy had hoped to find in the meeting. Shortly after Casey died, Bush sent the family a form letter expressing his condolences, and Cindy said she felt it was an impersonal gesture.

"I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," Cindy said after their meeting. "I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."

The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.

While meeting with Bush, as well as Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, was an honor, it was almost a tangent benefit of the trip. The Sheehans said they enjoyed meeting the other families of fallen soldiers, sharing stories, contact information, grief and support.

For some, grief was still visceral and raw, while for others it had melted into the background of their lives, the pain as common as breathing. Cindy said she saw her reflection in the troubled eyes of each.

"It's hard to lose a son," she said. "But we (all) lost a son in the Iraqi war."

The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.

For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.

For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.

"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," Cindy said.
last edited: 8/15/05 10:49:26 PM”

“http://slate.msn.com/id/2124500/fr/rss/

Interesting Reading from the Ultra Lib Slate

Cindy Sheehan's Sinister Piffle
What's wrong with her Crawford protest.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 15, 2005, at 11:50 AM PT


Here is an unambivalent statement: "The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."

And, now, here's another:

Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation and this world were betrayed by George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agendas after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy … not for the real reason, because the Arab Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy.

The first statement comes from Maureen Dowd, in her New York Times column of Aug. 10. The second statement comes from Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq last year. It was sent to the editors of ABC's Nightline on March 15. In her article, Dowd was arguing that Sheehan's moral authority was absolute.

I am at a complete loss to see how these two positions can be made compatible. Sheehan has obviously taken a short course in the Michael Moore/Ramsey Clark school of Iraq analysis and has not succeeded in making it one atom more elegant or persuasive. I dare say that her "moral authority" to do this is indeed absolute, if we agree for a moment on the weird idea that moral authority is required to adopt overtly political positions, but then so is my "moral" right to say that she is spouting sinister piffle. Suppose I had lost a child in this war. Would any of my critics say that this gave me any extra authority? I certainly would not ask or expect them to do so. Why, then, should anyone grant them such a privilege?

Sheehan has met the president before and has favored us with two accounts of the meeting, one fairly warm and the other distinctly cold. I have no means of knowing which mood reflected her real state of mind, but she now thinks she is owed another session with him, presumably in order to tell him what she asserted to the Nightline team. In pursuit of this, she has set up camp near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, and announced that she will not leave until she gets some more face-time with our chief executive. This qualifies her to be described by Dowd as "a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R." Well, I think I have to concede that if Dowd says you have a knack for PR, you have acquired one even if you didn't have one before. (I am not entirely certain, for example, that the above letter to ABC News would count as a delicate illustration of the said "knack.")

The president has compromised by sending his national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, down that Crawford road to meet the PR-knackish Cindy. Not good enough, exclaims Dowd. Hadley was pro-war and has even been described as a neocon! Clearly, then, the Sheehan demand is liable to expand the more it is met. President Bush must either find a senior staff member who opposes the war and then send him or her down the track to see if that will do. Or else he must, like the Emperor Henry of old, stage his own Canossa and attend on her himself, abject apologies at the ready. After all, we mustn't forget that we are dealing—as was that emperor in his dispute with Pope Gregory—with "an absolute moral authority."

What dreary sentimental nonsense this all is, and how much space has been wasted on it. Most irritating is the snide idea that the president is "on vacation" and thus idly ignoring his suffering subjects, when the truth is that the members of the media—not known for their immunity to the charm of Martha's Vineyard or Cape Cod in the month of August—are themselves lazing away the season with a soft-centered nonstory that practically, as we like to say in the trade, "writes itself." Anyway, Sheehan now says that if need be she will "follow" the president "to Washington," so I don't think the holiday sneer has much life left in it.

There are, in fact, some principles involved here. Any citizen has the right to petition the president for redress of grievance, or for that matter to insult him to his face. But the potential number of such people is very large, and you don't have the right to cut in line by having so much free time that you can set up camp near his drive. Then there is the question of civilian control over the military, which is an authority that one could indeed say should be absolute. The military and its relatives have no extra claim on the chief executive's ear. Indeed, it might be said that they have less claim than the rest of us, since they have voluntarily sworn an oath to obey and carry out orders. Most presidents in time of war have made an exception in the case of the bereaved—Lincoln's letter to the mother of two dead Union soldiers (at the time, it was thought that she had lost five sons) is a famous instance—but the job there is one of comfort and reassurance, and this has already been discharged in the Sheehan case. If that stricken mother had been given an audience and had risen up to say that Lincoln had broken his past election pledges and sought a wider and more violent war with the Confederacy, his aides would have been quite right to show her the door and to tell her that she was out of order.

Finally, I think one must deny to anyone the right to ventriloquize the dead. Casey Sheehan joined up as a responsible adult volunteer. Are we so sure that he would have wanted to see his mother acquiring "a knack for P.R." and announcing that he was killed in a war for a Jewish cabal? This is just as objectionable, on logical as well as moral grounds, as the old pro-war argument that the dead "must not have died in vain." I distrust anyone who claims to speak for the fallen, and I distrust even more the hysterical noncombatants who exploit the grief of those who have to bury them.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair.”

“http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Ol' Mike is pumping out the propaganda.

http://www.moveon.org

..so is MoveOn.org...


Yea, that's the ticket.
Those lefties never lie or spin the 'truth'.
LOL”

“I have no idea if this woman has met with Bush privately or not. I have no idea what her intentions may be.

But I do know that the war in Iraq is a charade, a big lie fed to the American people at just the right time. Like hungry, eager dogs on a hunt, the American people lapped up up a sh&t meal in a pretty package with tremendous fervor.

Some of us smelled the stinch and refused the meal, and many that feasted on the bounty of
misguided patiotism, revenge and national pride, are now feeling queazy, suspecting the food was foul. It most assuredly was and still is.”

“If you want sincerity from bush,you will be disapointed.”

“Wow, Bush lives next to Dale Gribble!

”

“So Stovie - You read the whole thing and still came away with the same snippet plastered all over Drudge's site? You call me a dumbass?”

“Did you happen to read this part?:


But as their meeting with the president approached, the family was faced with a dilemma as to what to say when faced with Casey's commander-in-chief.

"We haven't been happy with the way the war has been handled," Cindy said. "The president has changed his reasons for being over there every time a reason is proven false or an objective reached."

The 10 minutes of face time with the president could have given the family a chance to vent their frustrations or ask Bush some of the difficult questions they have been asking themselves, such as whether Casey's sacrifice would make the world a safer place.

But in the end, the family decided against such talk, deferring to how they believed Casey would have wanted them to act.


Does it sound like maybe the meeting didn't quite satisfy her at the time? Left some unfinished business... unanswered questions?

Smear a mother who has paid a pretty steep price if that's your style, but it looks pretty scummy from here.
last edited: 8/16/05 10:29:19 AM”

“What looks slimey is the left's using this poor woman.
Michael Moore tool.”

“I am responding specifically to your 11:39:20 AM post of 8/15/05.

"At the time she was fairly satisfied with the meeting... She has changed her mind and has become very anti-Bush since that meeting and now wants another meeting."


The story I linked to and you took away one quote from refutes you yet you call me stupid and dishonest? Your scumbaggery knows no limits.”

“How do you like being in bed with David Duke, Vile Man? ALL the nutcases are coming out of the woodwork to join the far left to 'support' this poor woman. She just lost her husband over this. He filed for divorce.


David Duke Gets Behind Cindy Sheehan
From the blog of David Duke, America's best-known racist and former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan:


Cindy Sheehan, a mother who lost a son in the Iraq War, is determined to prevent other mothers and fathers from experiencing the same loss.

Courageously she has gone to Texas near the ranch of President Bush and braved the elements and a hostile Jewish supremacist media to demand a meeting with him and a good explanation why her son and other’s sons and daughters must die and be disfigured in a war for Israel rather than for America.

Recently, she had the courage to state the obvious that her son signed up in the military to protect America not to die for Israel.


Read the whole thing.

The conclusion to draw from this is not that being against the war is racist or anything like that. The conclusion to draw is that Cindy Sheehan's anti-war views or so off-the-wall nutty that rabid anti-semitic kooks like David Duke agree with her.

This speaks to the validity of Cindy Sheehan's reasons for opposing the war, which seem to have more to do a vague distates for Israel than a lot of the leftist demagogues trumpeting her cause would like to admit.

By Rob Port of Say Anything.”

“Husband of 'Peace Mom' Files for Divorce 1 hour, 16 minutes ago (Off yahoo News)

FAIRFIELD, Calif. - The husband of Cindy Sheehan, the mother camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest the death of a son in the Iraq war, has filed for divorce, according to court documents.

Patrick Sheehan filed the divorce petition Friday in Solano County court, northeast of San Francisco. His lawyer did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.

The couple's eldest child, Casey, 24, was an Army soldier killed in April 2004. Cindy Sheehan has said the stress of the death led to the separation of the couple, who were high school sweethearts.

Sheehan has vowed to remain in Texas through Bush's August vacation, unless he meets with her. She began her protest 10 days ago and has since been joined by more than 100 anti-war activists.

"Our message is to bring the troops home," Sheehan, of Vacaville, said Monday.

The White House on Monday again issued a statement saying that Bush sympathizes with Sheehan. The president has given no indication that he will meet with her.

Sheehan, 48, and other grieving military families met with Bush in June 2004 at Fort Lewis, near Seattle, two months after her son's death.

But she says the meeting was unsatisfactory, and it came before reports surfaced about faulty pre-war intelligence, which enraged her.

When Sheehan arrived in Crawford on Aug. 6, her small group started marching to Bush's ranch, then was moved by authorities to a plot of land a few miles away.

Late Monday, a pickup truck tore through rows of white crosses that stretched about two-tenths of a mile along the side of the road at the Crawford camp. The crosses bore the names of fallen U.S. soldiers. No one was hurt.

Stove, her protest didn't lead to the divorce. The stress of losing a child is what caused it. They aren't the first couple to split because of losing a child, they won't be the last either”

“61% of Americans believe this war was a mistake.

It's you and your kind who are the nutcases.”