An Attention Whore Whose Moral Authority Is Absolute

Understandably, sundry Americans wonder what we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” think about Cindy Sheehan’s recent decision to pack up her slew of T-shirts emblazoned with radical messages and give up her cause. Given our enviable metaphorical perch on the metaphorical tree of e-punditry, our opinion on America’s erstwhile “Peace Mom” likely has particular resonance.

And, to be honest, dear reader, we’re pretty emotional about the whole matter. In fact, we found her parting column, “Good Riddance Attention Whore,” so difficult that we couldn’t even make our way through it all. That wasn’t, moreover, merely due to Ms. Sheehan’s dubious grasp of grammar—her title, for instance, should have read “Good Riddance, Attention Whore.” Does this woman not recognize that her authority to use commas is absolute? Apparently not.

Although we may be forced to endure jeers from our fellow “webloggers,” we don’t mind saying that we’ve enjoyed the Cindy Sheehan Anti-War Circus. First, Ms. Sheehan surely possesses the most humorously inapt voice in the history of protest movements. Quite frankly, she sounds like a dilapidated California sorority girl—nay, more like the female Muppet in Animal’s band. “Fer sure.” You don’t get too much more ridiculous than that.

Further, we savored Ms. Sheehan’s dramatic plummet from grace. Remember when the knuckle-dragging Maureen Dowd declared that “Peace Mom’s” “moral authority” was “absolute”? Gosh, that seems like hundreds of years ago.

And no wonder. The mainstream media originally positioned Ms. Sheehan as a reasonable grieving mother forced into the reasonable role of reasonable anti-war activist. That certainly fell apart, didn’t it?

One can only endure so many hugs for Hugo Chavez and denunciations of the evils of Zionism before one is ready to label Ms. Sheehan a raving radical. Hence Ms. Sheehan’s tumble into comparative obscurity: The mainstreamers could no longer portray her as anything other than a fringe figure—a radical nutter.

So, Cindy Sheehan, we hope you recognize that we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” aren’t taking this opportunity to hurl taunts and epithets your way. We merely wish you had retained your platform, so more folks could hear the sort of raving anti-Western madness that the big media attempted to label mainstream.

You needn’t be upset about the way you were criticized. In food co-ops and faculty lounges across the country, you’ll always be deemed a hero. Oh, and in Syria too.