Pink Baiting

Supporters of the war in Iraq are rallying around a new tactic - Pink baiting! 

The game plan works like this:

1. Attempt to discredit the person of Cindy Sheehan.  The warriors assume that our country lives in the trivial world of celebrities and packaged news, and so they are betting that personal popularity is what has drawn people's attention to Crawford, Texas.  In response, news has been manufactured; she thinks U.S. policy is too pro-Israeli, she has uttered a vulgarity, she and her husband are estranged.  Religious liberals may feel drawn to debate these banalities,  but they are intentional distractions.  Camp Casey is a rallying point for a renewed debate on the Iraq war and the whole destructive foreign policy of both the Republicans and the Democrats.  As part of the game plan, Cindy Sheehan has been called crazy, a liar, and a political opportunist.  The people who have rallied at Camp Casey must be discredited as well, their motives and personal hygiene is questioned, but what really motivates the attacks is the dozens of large vigils that took place around the country this week in solidarity with those who went to Crawford.


2. Attempt to link Sheehan with what will be called "the far left, or unpatriotic elements."  The parents, teachers, social workers, small business people, artists, working people, youth, young adults, old people, not so old people, clergy, secularists, and others that are beginning to  question the ongoing violence in their name must be libeled and trivialized.  So, the warriors send out their talking points, and the main stream media and those that still find that media creditable follow obediently.


Will it work?  I am eternally optimistic, it must be that Unitarian Universalist naïve, but I have seen turning points in popular sentiment  before, and given the failure of the warriors play book in the past, we may be witnessing something deeper and more enduring than how "likable" Cindy Sheehan is or is not.