If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. - Mario Andretti

Saturday, August 27, 2005

We’ve all heard of Casey Sheeehan’s mother.  She’s everywhere.  A Google News search for “cindy sheehan” turns up almost 16,000 references.  But I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Sally Goodrich.

A North Adams educator whose son died in the World Trade Center attacks will leave for Afghanistan this weekend to see the completion of her yearlong project to build a 16-classroom school for more than 500 children ages 6 to 13.
Sally Goodrich said workers are striving to finish construction before she arrives in the country, on a trip she is determined to take despite the increase in violent incidents occurring at the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. …

The school project evolved from the Goodriches’ correspondence with U.S. Marine Maj. Rush Filson, a childhood friend of their son, who described the needs of Afghan schools. … At this point, the Goodriches’ school project is undergoing the finishing touches, which includes a protective wall around the building, at its undisclosed location in a quiet village. The school also needs furniture, landscaping and other necessities that the Goodriches hope to provide through the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Foundation. Over the summer, an anonymous donor contributed $10,000 and more than $6,000 came from other donations.

They are building the school according to the Afghan Ministry of Education’s guidelines and funding the project through donations from American citizens.

Read the whole article for the details.  Sally Goodrich took her grief and channeled it into something positive.  She hasn’t prostituted the death of her son.  She hasn’t attached herself to publicity whores like Code Pink, Michael Moore, or MoveOn.  She chose her task, and went about it with a quiet dignity.  When you go a Google News search for “sally goodrich”, guess how many references turn up. 

One, the article quoted in this post.

Now, if you were to ask a representative of the mainstream media about this discrepancy they would undoubtedly respond with something to the effect that Casey Sheehan’s mother is newsworthy, that she’s someone the public is interested in learning more about, no matter what their views on the war might be.  In this I am in total agreement, she is newsworthy and should be reported on.  But the larger question is how did Casey Sheehan’s mother become this media sensation in the first place?  Because when you think about it, the only real difference between these two mothers is the amount of press coverage they are receiving.  Both took a tragedy and channeled it into a cause.  Why is one cause more worthy of press attention than the other?

It’s simple.  As is beyond dispute, the media in this country lean left.  In the run up to the war the individual reporters were undoubtedly opposed to the war on personal reasons, but it was hard to argue with the justification that Saddam had WMD.  Everyone, and I mean everyone agreed that this was so.  So while they wrote editorials about the ensuing quagmire, they really couldn’t attack the justification for the war on logical, factual grounds.  Then, when it turned out that the pre-war intel was wrong, their left-wing brethren attacked the media for “not doing its job.” There was one major paper (the NY Times?) that actually ran an editorial apologizing to America for accepting the intel as it was presented, and not questioning it more, as if there was any way that they could have disputed what every major western intelligence service agreed was true.  So, with egg all over their liberal faces, they have to somehow redeem themselves, and they see in Casey Sheehan’s mother the opportunity to do so.  She’s the perfect martyr for the anti-war cause, and by promoting her under the guise of her “newsworthiness” they can claim an unbiased stance; they’re not reporting on her to promote her position, they’re just reporting on her because she’s news.  But the only reason she’s news in the first place is because they chose to report on her.  They’ve created their own self-fulfilling prophesy, in a way.

Why is Sally Goodrich any less newsworthy?  Well, because nobody has heard of her.  And why has nobody heard of her?  Because the media aren’t reporting her story.  Why is Casey Sheehan’s mother newsworthy?  Because everyone has heard of her.  And why has everyone heard of her?  Because the media have been inundating the public with her story for the past few weeks.  If the media had given Sally Goodrich the kind of press attention that they bestowed on Casey Sheehan’s mother then Sally Goodrich would be a household name, being lionized on morning TV by Katie Couric.  And if the media had ignored Casey Sheehan’s mother as they have Sally Goodrich, then the former would be nothing more than a wrinkly old bag sitting in a lawn chair, baking in the Texas sun.  Of course, it’s hard to ignore Casey Sheehan’s mother when you have an army of well-funded liberal PR flacks making sure that her every utterance is recorded for posterity and broadcast to the world.  (Every utterance, that is, except for the one where she referred to the Islamofascists now terrorizing Iraq as “freedom fighters” and said of America, “This country is not worth dying for.” (Link here.)

Strange that the mainstream media would neglect to report on these highly inflammatory remarks, isn’t it?  If Casey Sheehan’s mother is so newsworthy, wouldn’t reporting these type of polarizing, offensive remarks be even more newsworthy?  It seems to me that they would be, yet I haven’t seen these referenced anywhere but the online media and blogosphere.  I wonder why that could be? 

It’s amazing the type of “grass roots” campaign you can organize when you’ve got multimillionaire liberals and left-wing PR firms managing your every move, and a compliant media doing everything they can to portray you in the best possible light.