1-2-3 Meme: Tagging the Party of Defeat

Well, this is the second time I've been hit with the 1-2-3 meme, so I should at least make a reasonable effort to be a mensch.

The 123 Meme says:

* Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
* Open the book to page 123.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the next three sentences.
* Tag five people.

Like the Dragon Lady, I normally don't do memes.

But I thought, well, this being the second time I've been tagged with this particular version, okay, maybe I'll play.

I had David Horowitz and Ben Johnson's Party of Defeat in front of me as I checked my Sitemeter this morning, when I found I'd been tagged:

Now, I turned to page 123, but the fifth sentence doesn't make much sense out of context, so I'm revising the rules a little to quote the full passage from pages 122-124, on the Democrats, Cindy Sheehan, and the left's manipulations of popular concerns for the troops, who're bearing the burden of our fight in Iraq:

Another opportunity to manipulate the heartstrings of American compassion presented itself in the person of Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan's son Casey had been killed in Iraq, and she had decided to hold a 'peace" vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. The Left, aided by a compliant media, instantly deified her and made her an icon of the hopes for peace and for shaking off the unbearable burden of war. The New York Time's Maureen Dowd wrote that as a grieving mother, Sheehan possessed "absolute" moral authority. Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin became her handler. The Daily Kos website said activists should always refer to her as "Mother Sheehan." Forty congressmen signed a letter encouraging the president to meet her.

Responding to these pressures, Bush dispatched National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joe Hagin to speak with Sheehan for forty-five minutes, to no avail. Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi joined California Democratic Party fundraiser and Code Pink organizer Jodie Evans to produce a webcast from Crawford featuring a call from Illiois Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who called in to express her solidarity with Sheehan.

Then, as with [Joseph] Wilson, [Valerie] Plame, and [Karen] Kwiatkowski, Mother Sheehan's true colors began to show. A year prior to her political coming out, she had met with Bush and chosen not to raise any political issues. In fact, she had glowing words to say about the president and their meeting at the time. But now, under the influence of Medea Benjamin and her comrades, Sheehan began accusing the president of murdering her son Casey. In fact, Casey had volunteered not for one but for two tours of duty, the second after the Iraq war was already in progress. He also had volunteered for the mission in which he was killed, against the advice of his sergeant. The mission was to rescue his comrades who were under attack. Instead of honoring her son's courage and paying tribute to him as a hero despite their political differences, Mother Sheehan chose to exploit and abuse his memory, falsely presenting him as an unwitting pawn in the president's evil scheme to colonize Iraq.

Sheehan soon was referring to the terrorists as "freedom fighters," saying that "America has been kililng people on this continent ... since it was started," and sounding just like the leftist Medea Benjamin had trained. "This country is not worth dying for," Mother Sheehan declared, calling the president a "lying bastard" and "the biggest terrorist in the world." According to Sheehan, who picked up the latest conspiracy theory from the political circles around Benjamin, "9-11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neocon agenda through." Her son Casey, she wrote, echoing the Left's anti-Semitic prejudices, "was killed for lies and for a ... Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel." When the comment drew a critical blast, she attempted to lie about writing it.

Even after Sheehan had exposed herself, Democrat Lynn Woolsey provided her with the rare privilege of being a guest of Congress at the 2006 State of the Union address. Teh House gallery is not large, and member of Congress is provided with exactly two tickets to the event, with the second ticket usually going to the spouse. Woolsey gave her spare ticket to Sheehan, who used it to stage a one-woman protest against the president, and was arrested by Capitol police. When asked why she had facilitated Sheehan's protest, Woolsey claimed she "didn't see [the invitation] as a political statement at all."

Now, Michael, an American oleh in Central Galil, Israel, tagged me in his post with the added message, "Don, great blog, but lighten up!"

Hmm, lighten up, eh?

Nah, not when I've got work to do combatting the lefty hordes who're dissected in Party of Defeat.

I'm not tagging anyone beyond this, but I think JSF over at Valley of the Shadows has previously included me in a meme post of his, so I'll ask readers to go over there and give him a nice hello.

The other two original tag posts are:

Oleh's Musings, "The Really Good Meme, Redux," and Swedish Meatballs Confidential, "Touched Becometh Toucher."