She surely doesn’t deserve a son who volunteered to serve his country in harm’s way, knowing full well what the consequences could be. Not by her disgusting conduct and the lies she has told about her country. She must be intelligent enough to realize she is being used as a ‘useful idiot’ by the real operatives on the left.
Read Saul Alinsky.

As for her son, he hardly deserves to have his memory desecrated and used by his own mother for anti American purposes.

I don’t think that’s harsh at all!

“….there’s really no way to interpret it but that such a person would be missing the point.”

- I’m pretty sure every poster here caught that about your problem several dozen posts ago…… So you can stop repeating yourself now…..

Okay, that’s pretty funny.

Kevin—

If it makes you feel more at home, I’d be happy to drop the word “poo” in a few more times.

My point with the AZ Cardinals reference is that surely there are many associations we can make with an individual; not all of them have that transitive property of semantics whereby endorsement of the individual connotes endorsement of the association. Tillman may not have reached such a level of association with his team, so take Lou Gehrig—he’s in the truest sense a New York Yankee. He’s also Boston Red Sox Curt Schilling’s favorite player. But for Schilling, Gehrig is about the records, the dedication, and the ALS, not the AL East standings.

You draw the line between what team he played for and what things he “stood” for. I think that exercise is useful, but I’m trying to point out that defining what he “stood” for, or what Ms. Sheehan stands for, isn’t a self-defining question.

Conceptually, one can imagine an infinite number of degrees where one could draw the line between what associations we can fairly impute to Ms. Sheehan’s supporters and those that are too attenuated. The list can be very short, or it may go on forever. And there’s many places to draw the line. You seem to think—and please correct me if I’m wrong—that Sheehan’s symbolic value extends to pretty much all the wartime activities of the U.S. during Bush’s term in office, covering the consequences of those war and all the improper motives for it. I simply cannot accept that interpretation; I think that supporting Cindy Sheehan endorses two ideas—first, that the military objectives of war in Iraq do not justify the loss of American life thereby incurred, and to a lesser extent, that President Bush is something like a coward for not having a conversation with her. (I’m uneasy with my phrasing of that last part; I’m aware he spoke to her before, and I’m really not comfortable with the word “coward,” but I’m writing this on the fly and nothing better is coming to mind.) So I don’t think Sheehan stands for, say, opposition to the war in Afghanistan (although she may oppose it) because supporting her and supporting the Afghan war are totally consistent; they don’t logically conflict, even if they have discordant associations in the eyes of some. Contrariwise, if someone were to support both Cindy Sheehan and the decision to go to war in Iraq, there’s really no way to interpret it but that such a person would be missing the point.

Anyway, just sayin’.

“The left has bestowed its highest award on Mrs. Sheehan – victim”……

Let me use a few examples. I am a republican. If I walked around with an elephant poster, would you assume:

I’m pro-life? (I’m not)
I’m religious? (I’m not)
Bush makes no mistakes? (Only Reagan can make that claim

I believe that the christian way of life is the best. If I walked around with a big crucifix, would you assume:

I’m christian? (I’m not really)
I don’t believe in evolution? (I do)
I want religion in politics (in or out doesn’t matter to me)

you must be wondering what my point is by now . the point is, I dont’ use either of those symbols because I agree with most, but not nearly all of the things they stand for.

Ms. Sheehan stands for:

War is bad
Troops out of everywhere
Israel is bad (may have retracted this one, but only partially)
US is bad
Bush and his buddy Halliburton is bad
Peace, by appeasement

If you don’t agree with these things she is standing for, then you should think twice about using her as your symbol.

I have to say that I dont understand this paragraph:

Furthermore, just as a general matter, what part of symbolism causes this result? Are those who use Pat Tillman’s obligated to uphold all of his opinions? And how far does that go—could you not use Tillman as a symbol and at the same time cheer for his old division rival the 49ers?

But I would suggest that the team he played for is not the same as things he ’stood’ for. I hope I understood you correctly.

Which has been what the responses to you about this issue have been: intelligent and coherent. Your swipes at the intelligence of others here aren’t winning you many friends, or at the very least, people who want to continue to debate you on the merits of your opinion. I’ll say again I think you make some good points but they’d be better expressed without taking swipes at the intelligence of who you debate against here. We’re all adults, so let’s keep the conversations adult and operate on the assumption that we all have an IQ over 50, shall we? Any future swipes at someone’s intelligence will be edited. Thank you.

Kevin: I’ll see what I can do on the preview button

sentence edited out by ST

Oh, and some quibbles: “i.e.” means “that is”; I suspect you intended “e.g., Maureen Dowd,” for exemplis gratia (correct spelling not guaranteed), or “for example.”
And “who,” not “whom.” Whom is a a pronoun in the objective case. A good test is to substitute “he” and “him” for “who” and “whom” to see which you should use.

And I’ll have to disagree with you and your citation to Ann Coulter; I’m perfectly content on my side of the fence. By 51%-45% Americans say the president is not doing a good job, and by 56%-43% they say the war is going moderately or very badly. So, irrespective of the terms I use without understanding, precisely what am I supposed to be upset about?