By now you’ve probably seen the latest output from the GOP’s
magic Reality-Inversion Machine, the device which efficiently turns
corporate handouts into displays of free enterprise, brutal oil dictators
into allies of democracy, and
convicted perjurers into paragons of truth.
According to the Machine, Cindy Sheehan is variously an extremist
fanatic and a flip-flopper (how can she be both?), a crafty media maven
and a complete tool (how can she be both?), and a pacifist zealot who
poses some kind of imminent security threat (… you get the idea by now).
Of course, she’s none of these things.
My cousin Nick has actually known her pretty well for years, it turns out. So I can’t say I know her well, but I certainly know a guy who does. What I hear is nothing but sincere and cool.
I received a letter last night from a longtime reader/first-time
writer named Tom from Wichita Falls. He actually went down to visit Cindy in Crawford the other day, met her, and got a good look at who is with her there and why. He has kindly granted me
permission to share the letter with you.
I hope this might help clear up for some people who Cindy Sheehan and the people around her really are.
from Wichita Falls to visit my father’s grave. He passed away last
October from cancer. Naturally, I miss him like crazy.
On the way home, as I was driving through Waco, I thought of Cindy
Sheehan and decided to take a 20-minute detour to see if I could find
her. What I found was other people who had come to Crawford out of
whatever loss or sympathy they were feeling. From the Crawford Peace
House, I caught a ride out to the protest site with a woman who had
driven down from Maryland. Riding along were a minister from the SCLC
and a Vietnam vet from Waco. At the site, the first person to approach
me was a one-armed man in a Veterans For Peace T-shirt. He asked why I
had come. I said I had just visited the grave of my Air Force vet
father and felt that I needed to be there. He offered his
condolences. A woman from Fort Worth asked me to sign a guest book and
then pointed me toward Cindy.
Cindy had just finished an interview with a print journalist and was
making her way to an interview with an area TV reporter. I smiled at
her, and she stopped. I said, "Hi, my name is Tom, and I just wanted
to say hello." And then she hugged me. And we stood there on the side
of that narrow road in an embrace that lasted almost a minute. I told
her I was sorry for her loss. She said that there was so much more
good than bad in the world that the good just had to win, didn’t it? I
said I sure hoped that was true. No tears, no sobs. Just two people
missing two other people who were with us once but now were gone.
I caught a ride back to my car with a guy who had come down from
Philadelphia. I must have heard a half-dozen people say that they
weren’t sure why they were there; they just had to come.
The dozens of people I saw in my thirty-minute visit were sincere,
thoughtful, even somber. The President may not be listening to them,
but for a little while on a hot farm road in central Texas, it seemed
that just finding kindred spirits drawn to this isolated corner of the
earth was an accomplishment. There was a lot of good there. And I
hope Cindy is right about it being strong enough to overcome the bad.
That’s all this is. It’s all we can hope for, and all we can try for.
My condolences to Tom and his family for his loss. And my thanks for this simple and honest letter.