Will Mega Meets Cindy Sheehan - sort of
From merry olde England:
Maverick British politician George Galloway has claimed it would be "morally justified" for an assassin to target Prime Minister Tony Blair, but he said he was not advocating an attempt....
"It would be entirely logical and explicable — and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did," the monthly GQ magazine quoted Galloway as saying....
Galloway, currently in Cuba, verified the accuracy of his comments in a statement posted on the Web site of his political party, Respect....
Galloway was kicked out of Blair's Labour Party in October 2003 for urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq....
In his magazine interview, Galloway claimed to been the best fighter at his school, and said he would like to go a few rounds with both Blair and Bush.
"I'd take them both at once," Galloway said.
"That's what really upsets me. They are the sort of men who are ready to fight to the last drop of other people's blood. They couldn't personally punch their way out of a paper bag. They send other mothers' sons to their death, and I find them both deeply repugnant," he said.
But Galloway has one thing in common with Will Mega:
Galloway spent three weeks last year starring on the reality TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" and was ridiculed for scenes in which he lapped up imaginary milk and purred like a cat.
His decision to participate in the program — away from his duties in Parliament and alongside a topless model, an androgynous pop singer and former NBA star Dennis Rodman — resulted in criticism from constituents and lawmakers.
Back to mothers of the Iraqi dead. Thomas Lipscomb wrote the following:
On a pleasant hillside in the Vacaville-Elmira cemetery in California, there is a grave that still has no gravestone almost two years after a brave young soldier was buried there.
According to his mother, he was born on Memorial Day and died at age 24 on April 4, 2004, fighting with the First Cavalry Division in a militia- and terrorist-infested district of Baghdad named Sadr City.
He was not an unknown soldier. In fact, thanks to his mother's constant use of his name in media appearances, he may be the best-known soldier of the Iraqi war. He's Casey Austin Sheehan, the son of anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.
The expense of a memorial gravestone is a problem for many people on limited incomes. But Cindy Sheehan was the beneficiary of $250,000 from her son's insurance policy. Besides, the federal government pays for funeral expenses and a simple marble marker. As a veteran, Casey Sheehan also merited a free plot with perpetual care in one of the nation's many national cemeteries....
So with all of these resources, why is Casey Sheehan's grave still unmarked?...
[C]ritics...faulted [Cindy Sheehan] for placing 2,000 crosses with names of U.S. casualties at what she called "Camp Casey," near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, last summer, while she has yet to place a marker at her own son's grave. In fact, there has been such a firestorm in the blogosphere about Casey Sheehan's grave that there are more than 250,000 Internet entries on the subject.
Cindy Sheehan is indignant at this kind of attention. She attributes it to a "Rovian, heartless and ignorant smear machine" attacking her "for the 'crime' of being brokenhearted and trying to save lives." And she vows: "They can't stop me from trying to save lives. No matter what they cook up next. It is too important. No more needless gravestones. No more wasted lives."...
Cindy Sheehan says she was too brokenhearted to do anything but occasionally put flowers on her son's grave the first year. And perhaps she had some inner resistance to accepting a government gravestone from a Bush administration she detests. But she should remember that the stone doesn't come from one administration. It comes from the government of all of the American people who wish to honor her son's service.
The good news is that Casey Sheehan's father, Patrick, has had enough of this and has quietly arranged with a local monument company to erect a memorial. Wouldn't it be fitting if it were in place in time for Casey Sheehan's birthday, which this year once again falls on Memorial Day?
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