If you don’t know who Casey Sheehan’s mom is, pull your head out of that hole and spend a couple minutes with your newsource of choice. Brief version: She’s the mother of an Army soldier who was killed in action in early 2004 in Iraq. She’s currently camped out at the President’s ranch in Crawford, TX doing her best (with much assistance from a number of liberal hate-America groups) to ruin the President’s working vacation. She blames the President for her son’s death, has no sense of honor nor respect for her son’s memory, and is all too willing to use his death to push her political agenda. She has moved from the honored position of grieving mother deserving of our respect to fanatical whacko who deserves nothing more than complete disregard, if not utter contempt.

I was talking with my mom the other evening and mentioned this woman and her little charade. I told her about Casey’s mom’s statement offering to http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/29/1434216 “run him over with a car” so he wouldn’t have to serve in Iraq. (Mom got pretty wrapped around the sheer hypocrisy of that statement) We talked about Casey’s mom’s visit with President Bush in Seattle, her association with Michael Moore and MoveOn, and her current demands for (another) personal meeting with the President.

Now consider, I spent 20 years in the Marine Corps – every one of them protested by my mother, albeit only in private conversations between us. Her public face on the subject was nothing but supportive and proud of her son, and I firmly believe that if I had been wounded or killed in action, that would not have changed. My mom has no qualms whatsoever about speaking her mind to whomever will listen, but she also has a sense of national pride and pride in our country’s military that was honed in the aftermath of World War II, and during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. She’s from the MidWest, too – which may help explain her drastically different outlook on things from Casey’s mom, who was weaned on attitudes of the left coast of these United States.

Anyway, mom half-jokingly offered to go correct “that woman”; and by “correct”, I mean the tried and true method of “correction” implemented by Marine Corps drill instructors for many, many years. I in turn half-jokingly told her I’d pay for her gas to make the trip (Mom lives in Texas, but nowhere near Crawford). We laughed a little and the conversation moved on…

But let’s be realistic here: Casey’s mom is a limp, liberal, peace-nik who spent the last 8 years leading a church youth group and threatening to run her son over with a car to keep him from performing his duties as a soldier in the US Army. My mom is an Iowa native (yes, a farmgirl) who has worked all her life (from secretarial to factory jobs), raised four kids on her own, lives in Texas, and feels honest pride when she hears the National Anthem.

I guess I’d better not tempt fate by sending that gas money.