Cindy Sheehan

It occurred to me today that, like Jesus riding the ass into Jerusalem knowing he was to die shortly, so Cindy Sheehan rode the bus into Washington DC to complete her journey with the pinnacle ritual of protesters and dissenters: arrest and jailing.

Pictures and video show a smiling, almost amazed, Sheehan being carried by a phalanx of cops to a waiting van where, surrounded by other criminals, she smiles and waves as she departs.

So, this is the same Sheehan who has been railing unrelentingly against Bush, Cheney, the military, the Departments of State and Defense, and every target she has handed to her? The vitriolic, unsparing, angry woman? And yet, about to be swallowed into the very belly of the beast she is almost beatific in her happiness.

No fear? No concerns for her safety? No worries she might "have an accident?" Or get "misplaced" in the system?

Her near-complete lack of concern about being taken by the very security apparatus she has been criticising and deriding for months says something either about Sheehan or the objects of her scorn and derision.

Either Sheehan sees herself as a celebrity who is above the need for these kinds of worry-- she's just too well-known and well-loved to be subject to danger -- or the people she sees as heartless imperialists filled with hate and greed... aren't.

Neither option speaks well for Sheehan, but I suspect most readers of H-B had already figured that out.