Ned writes:

This is a bum deal. Every time someone criticizes Cindy Sheehan we are told, "she has a right to free speech." Then when they clarify that they are not challenging her right to dissent, but rather her authority as a geo-political analyst, Sheehan's ilk says, "How dare you question the mother of a dead solider." Which side is really trying to restrict speech here?

First of all, Cindy Sheehan is not purporting to be a geo-political analyst. She wants to know, "What noble cause did my son die for?" She, like many others around the country, wants to know what her son died for. Is it weapons of mass destruction? Nope, it can't be that, since we never found any WMDs. Was it because Saddam Hussein was in violation of U.N. resolution 1441? Nope, it can't be that, since ninety U.N. resolutions are currently being violated, and we're not invading the countries that are violating those. Was it because Saddam Hussein was linked with al-Qaeda? Nope, it can't be that, since the September 11 Commission determined that the two had no operating relationship, despite the Bush administration's attempts to sneakily suggest that there was (cf. All the President's Spin). Was it to liberate the Iraqi people? Nope, it can't be that, since the Iraqi people are worse-off now than they were under Saddam and instead of being threatened by a central state, they are being threatened by multiple terrorist groups in Iraq.

All of the reasons we had been given for going into Iraq have been refuted. We've discovered that people high up in the administration, like John Bolton, knowingly and deliberately mischaracterized intelligence so that they could bolster their case for war. We've discovered, through the Downing Street memos, that Bush was going to go to war as early as 2002. We've discovered that Bush ignored repeated warnings about al-Qaeda and forcibly silenced people who disagreed.

And now Cindy Sheehan's son is dead. And she does not think that her son died for a noble cause; she thinks the Iraq was is wrong and she wants to meet with the president. She is doing that most First Amendment of things: "petitioning [her] government for a redress of grievances."

My beef is not with people challenging her right to dissent. My beef is with people (1) attempting to smear her through ad hominem attacks and other kinds of attacks as those same people have done before with people who questioned the Bush administration. My beef is also with people (2) suggesting that she shouldn't question her government. The Bush administration has engaged in a systematic attacking (or smearing, or discrediting, or whatever) of any person -- that's any person, be he grieving mother, war veteran, or senator -- who becomes inconvenient for the administration or dares to question the administration. We're dealing with a very arrogant, patriarchal "father knows best" attitude about the world. "Don't question your president; he knows best." Conservative commentators even act surprised that someone would dare to criticize the president, as though we live in Communist China, where dissent is squelched by tank. Who is the president to think he is beyond reproach? And who are these commentators to think that he is beyond reproach? Of course his actions are being criticized; his actions must be criticized or we will have fallen into a situation where we blindly trust our leaders and don't question why they do things. There are some times when they do not have the most upstanding of reasons for doing things, and as citizens -- from where Bush's power comes, not the other way around -- we must demand accountability of the people in which we have invested power. These current leaders not only do not want to be held accountable, but they stonewall attempts at accountability, and they have a coordinated Republican Spin Machine to help them.

This Republican Spin Machine agrees ideologically with the war and buys into the things the Bush administration said to justify the war. Fair enough. But when it tries to go the extra step to say that dissent decreases troop morale and is treasonous (the latter not said suggested by Bill O'Reilly, who actually said that other people might regard her actions as treasonous), that enters the realm of the totalitarian. Suddenly there is an entire class of things that the citizens cannot say for fear that it might hinder "morale" or might be "treasonous." The word treason has been thrown around a lot lately, just as references to Nazis have been thrown about in the past month, and both sides would do well not to take treason lightly. Giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" does not mean criticizing our leaders and suggesting that their actions are wrong. To look at the true definition of treason, go and find Jose Padilla or John Walker Lindh, American citizens who actually went to fight with the enemy.

Who is un-American when he suggests that dissent is wrong? Not the dissenters. Again I resort to Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." In a democracy (or a democratic republic), the citizenry is responsible for keeping the leaders in check and assuring that they do not abuse their power. We have a record of power abuses, and we are entitled to some answers, and if that is "treason," then there's no reason to be fighting this war at all.