Even MORE Bad News For Sheehan - Husband Wants Divorce

[GotZoom]

AUGUST 15--The next well-wisher approaching Cindy Sheehan at her tent encampment outside President George W. Bush's Texas vacation home may actually be a process server. That's because the California woman's husband--in a curious bit of timing--filed for divorce Friday afternoon (below you'll find a copy of Patrick Sheehan's complaint, lodged August 12 in Solano County District Court). With Sheehan, 48, entering a second week outside Bush's Crawford retreat, her husband's divorce petition cites "irreconcilable differences" for the demise of the couple's 28-year marriage (the Sheehans, the document states, have been separated since June 1). Along with a Vacaville home, Patrick Sheehan listed other "community assets" as "any and all benefits payable as a result of son's death," including a Prudential insurance policy and "benefits from the U.S. Government." From her roadside outpost, Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey, an Army Specialist, was killed last year in Iraq, has become the face of the U.S. antiwar movement, telling reporters that she will not budge until Bush meets with her and explains "why our sons are dead." Noting that Bush has referred to the war as a "noble" pursuit, Sheehan told Reuters, "If it's such a noble cause, why aren't his daughters over there?" Patrick Sheehan's lawyer, Glen DeRonde, did not return a TSG call, so it is unclear whether the divorce complaint will be delivered to her in Texas or when she returns to her home east of San Francisco. (4 pages)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0815051sheehan1.html

 

[Annie]

I doubt I'll feel sorry for her, but Taranto has a point:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/

BY JAMES TARANTO
Monday, August 15, 2005 12:11 p.m. EDT

The Sorrow and the Pity
Time magazine reports that Cindy Sheehan's family is "imploding":

Sheehan lost her job at Napa County [Calif.] Health and Human Services because of all her absences, she says. Husband Pat, 52, couldn't bear having [fallen son] Casey's things at home and put most of them in storage. "We grieved in totally different ways," Cindy says. "He wanted to grieve by distracting himself. I wanted to immerse myself." . . . The couple separated in June.

Daughter Carly, 24, wrote a poem that begins, "Have you ever heard the sound of a mother screaming for her son?" Surviving son Andy, 21, supports his mother in principle but recently sent her a long e-mail imploring her "to come home because you need to support us at home," he says.

The New York Times reports that Mrs. Sheehan's politics were the cause of her marital collapse:

She said she and her husband separated a few months ago as a result of the war, and of her activism. Although she and her estranged husband are both Democrats, she said she is more liberal than he is, and now, more radicalized.​

The Times doesn't elaborate on Mrs. Sheehan's description of herself as "radicalized." Through her own words, unreported by either Time or the Times, she makes clear that she has embraced a grotesque ideology that goes far beyond garden-variety Angry Left paranoia--though it includes plenty of that, as National Review's Byron York reported last week:

"This is something that can't be ignored," Sheehan said during a conference call with bloggers representing sites like democrats.com, codepink4peace.org, and crooksandliars.com. "They can't ignore us, and they can't put us down. Thank God for the Internet, or we wouldn't know anything, and we would already be a fascist state."

"Our government is run by one party, every level," Sheehan continued, "and the mainstream media is a propaganda tool for the government." Sheehan also called the 2004 presidential election "the election, quote-unquote, that happened in November."​

Sheehan spoke at an April San Francisco State University rally in support of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in February of providing material aid to terrorists. Here's an excerpt:

I was raised in a country by a public school system that taught us that America was good, that America was just. America has been killing people . . . since we first stepped on this continent, we have been responsible for death and destruction. I passed on that bullshit to my son and my son enlisted. I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for." If we're attacked, we would all go out. We'd all take whatever we had. I'd take my rolling pin and I'd beat the attackers over the head with it. But we were not attacked by Iraq. We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have. The people are good, the system is morally repugnant. . . .

What they're saying, too, is like, it's okay for Israel to have nuclear weapons. But Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons. It's okay for the United States to have nuclear weapons. It's okay for the countries that we say it's okay for. We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now. That country is contaminated. It will be contaminated for practically eternity now. It's okay for them to have them, but Iran or Syria can't have them. It's okay for Israel to occupy Palestine, but it's--yeah--and it's okay for Iraq to occupy--I mean, for the United States to occupy Iraq, but it's not okay for Syria to be in Lebanon.​

Earlier in April, at a speech before the United Methodist Church in Venice, Calif., Sheehan likened Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to "Hitler and Stalin" and was particularly lurid in describing her hatred of Rumsfeld's then-deputy:

As soft-spoken and sincere-sounding as Paul Wolfowitz is, is there yet any sane adult in this country whose skin does not crawl when this murderous liar opens his mouth and speaks?

She concluded: "In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God's devoted servants."
​

The mainstream media have largely ignored Sheehan's crackpot views, and not only--perhaps not even primarily--for ideological reasons. Members of the White House press corps find the annual sojourn to Crawford deathly dull. They need something to do; they want bylines--and "heartbroken everymom" makes for a much more compelling story than "extremist hatemonger."

The journalists will soon move on, and her political allies may do so as well. For them she is a mere instrument. The White House press corps will discard her as soon as they return to Washington where there's real news going on. Serious opponents of the war in Iraq will cast her aside if her foul statements make her an embarrassment. When that happens, we can only hope that someone still cares about Cindy Sheehan--not as a story or a symbol, but as a human being.

 

[Zhukov]

I am so sick of hearing comments like...

"If it's such a noble cause, why aren't his daughters over there?"

Ma'am, the President's daughters are, just like your son was, adults capable of making their own decisions. We have an all volunteer military. We do not send of children to war against their will in this country. They do so of their own volition.

Just like that fat jackass going to D.C. to ask Sen.'s whether or not their children were in Iraq.

It's such a specious and dishonorable argument. Those who make it ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 

[LuvRPgrl]

I am so sick of hearing comments like...



Ma'am, the President's daughters are, just like your son was, adults capable of making their own decisions. We have an all volunteer military. We do not send of children to war against their will in this country. They do so of their own volition.

Just like that fat jackass going to D.C. to ask Sen.'s whether or not their children were in Iraq.

It's such a specious and dishonorable argument. Those who make it ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Not sure what fat jackass you are referring to, but I totally agree with everything you say. Kennedy is a major embarrasment. I love the way talk radio, Laura Ingram in particular make him look like a real dolt, drunken dolt that he is.

Today I heard on Larry Elder, he replayed a tape of an interview with Howard Dean.

Dean "The main theme of the Democrat party can be summed up in three words ' we need to change' ", hmmm, only problem was it was FOUR words he used, bwahhahahahha, they call Bush a dummy, Dean cant even count !!

 

[Zhukov]

Not sure what fat jackass you are referring to,

Was referring to Michael 'two' Moore 'cheesburgers please'.

In his propaganda piece Fahrenheit 9/11 he confronted congressman on the streets of D.C. and asked them whether their children were in Iraq.

 

[Gem]

and then promptly cut any footage of Congressman who DID have family members serving in Iraq out of the final product...

 

[Nuc]

I am so sick of hearing comments like...



Ma'am, the President's daughters are, just like your son was, adults capable of making their own decisions. We have an all volunteer military. We do not send of children to war against their will in this country. They do so of their own volition.

J.

It's buyers remorse. Everyone knows the danger of military service. What kind of idiotic sense of entitlement makes her think her son was immune to death?

 

[Zhukov]

and then promptly cut any footage of Congressman who DID have family members serving in Iraq out of the final product...

Yep. I believe he also cut footage where the man's response was, "my son is 9."