Jousting with Phil Hendrie re: Cindy Sheehan

In response to conservative talk show host Phil Hendrie, who criticized Cindy Sheehan and referred to her as "an ignorant cow", I wrote  an email objecting to the statement, supporting Cindy's right to demand answers to her questions from the President, and pointing out some of the more obvious flaws in Bush's policies.  To this, Mr. Hendrie replied as follows:

"Dear Sir,

You know as well as I do that my arguments for the Iraq war and against Cindy Sheehan you have no interest in hearing. They would destroy your point of view completely anyway.

You have no interest in the American military. In your view, the more of them who die...the better it is for your "argument.""

To which I replied (below the fold):

"That might be the single most obnoxious comment I've ever read in print.  If it were up to people of my point of view, no American serviceperson would be dead in Iraq and instead we would've gone after Osama Bin Laden and destroyed Al-Qaeda.  Bin Laden has been hanging out in Pakistan for well over 3 years and yet people like you who claim to care more about our national security than people like me hardly question why Bush hasn't made that priority number one.  We would be safer today if people of my point of view were in power.  At least we Democrats could figure out a way to get sufficient body armor to the troops.

It is because of people of your point of view that thousands upon thousands are dead and wounded in Iraq.  You don't dare question Bush's policies, and therefore there is no accountability for mistakes and no incentive for him to make needed changes.  On supporting Bush, those of your point of view appear to want to defy the clinical definition of insanity.  You continue to blindly support the same policies and expect a different result.  You can only play a bad hand for so long before the jig is up.  Perhaps the comment "ignorant cow" was a Freudian slip subconsciously directed at yourself and those of your ilk."

I think the lesson here is we have to keep asserting ourselves against the right in order to win.  Public opinion is with us currently on the war issue, and it will stay with us as long as we remain feisty.  We can expose the right for their ignorance and insensitivity if we stay true to what we believe.