Watch Them Dogs

I've been sometimes amused, sometimes amazed, but always saddened by the intense media coverage surrounding Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX. If press coverage is any indication, Cindy Sheehan arrived in Texas in a bus called the "Impeachment Express" and is apparently telling everyone who will listen that George Bush killed her son.

She was barking a far different tune a year ago. As reported by her hometown paper the Vacaville, Reporter (via Drudge):

"'I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,' Cindy said after their meeting. 'I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith.'

"The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.

"The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.

"For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.

For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.

"'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together,' Cindy said."

From thanking the President for his support of her family, to publicly accusing him of murdering her son in just over a year, Cindy Sheehan has traveled a long, tortured path. I don't believe the transformation from the mother of a proud soldier, to becoming a shrill mockery of her son's sense of duty, was a path she traveled alone.

I fear she was dogged every step of the way.

Reverend Dr. Bennett Walker Smith, Sr., a fellow southerner who moved to New York, once gave a sermon called "Watch Them Dogs," about the kinds of people you might want to avoid in a church congregation.

A paraphrase of that sermon goes something like this:

There are people like town dogs—overfed, good for nothing and so lazy they won't even scratch fleas. All a town dog does is lie under the porch all day, until late at night when he starts howling at nothing, and he'll keep howling till he has every other dog in the town howling at nothing, too.

And then there are alley dogs, always head down in the filth, dragging rotten things out and causing a terrible stink.

And then there are bird dogs. Bird dogs jump in the bushes and shake things out for the hunters. They won't kill nobody, but they sure will flush them out by pointing. Judas was a bird dog.

And then there are setters. Setters will "set" around and talk and carry on, but when push comes to shove and it is time to get things done, you can't rely on a setter. He won't get behind you.

And then we have poodles. You know poodles—pretty, pampered, always in need of special treatment and good for absolutely nothing. A poodle is a worthless dog, except maybe to other poodles.

All this leads up to a story about the feist terrier. You've seen a feist. They ain't no bigger than nothing, all fur and bark. Well, this particular feist terrier hung out on his master's front porch behind a white picket fence, and every morning, a big Doberman would come by on his morning walk.

Well, this little feist knows that the gate on that fence is always locked, and so every morning when that Doberman goes by, that little feist tears across the porch, down the walk, and hurtles himself up against that gate, barking his fool head of at the Doberman, who pays him no mind. That little feist follows him along the length of the fence barking and carrying on until he comes to the end of the fence, and he keeps right on barking until that Doberman turns the corner.

Every morning this goes on—yap! yap! yap! yap!—and the Doberman ignores that little feist… at least until one fateful day, when the feist's master forgot to lock the gate. The Doberman came by on his walk, and that little feist tore of the porch, hurtled himself against the gate—the gate swung open—and he found himself standing right in front of the Doberman.

Now, that Doberman had been waiting for this day aloooooooong time, and he tore into the feist.

When the Doberman finally let that feist go, that feist was so happy. He dragged himself back up on the porch, battered and bloodied, with one though on his mind…

"Who the hell left open the gate?"

Every day it seems that the craven alleyway hounds and baying town dogs of the media get just a little louder, and bird dogs like Cindy Sheehan do more pointing that emboldens our enemies and ends up getting good people (like her son) killed. The gate unlocked in America on 9/11.

It is time that American liberals learned to quit charging headfirst into it.