Is Cindy Sheehan Making A Mint Off Of Her Son’s Death?

by John Hawkins | November 30, 2005 2:12 am

Back when Cindy Sheehan was in the news every day and liberals were fawning over her as the “Rosa Parks” of the anti-war movement, a few people, myself included, had the temerity to ask if Cindy Sheehan was using her son’s death to rake in the bucks. Back on August 11th of this year, when “Mother Sheehan” was in the midst of wrapping the press around her little finger, I wrote the following:

“Cindy Sheehan has gotten an enormous amount of fawning press coverage of late and she’s in heavy demand on the left. They want her to do speeches, appearances; you have to figure that the donations are just pouring into the anti-war group she co-founded, “Gold Star Families For Peace,” and can a book deal be far behind?

Now, given that Mrs. Sheehan is a full-time antiwar activist whose notoriety is based entirely on the fact that she lost a son in Iraq, there is a very basic question that needs to be asked at this point: is she making a profit off of her son’s death?

…For example, does Cindy Sheehan take any money for speeches beyond her expenses? Does she get paid a salary by “Gold Star Families For Peace?” Does she stand to make more money if donations go up?

Some people might think it’s not proper to ask those sort of questions. But, since Ms. Sheehan has chosen to blatantly exploit her son’s death to promote “her own personal agenda and notoriety,” I don’t think it’s unfair to wonder if this is really ultimately about grief or whether perhaps it could be about grief AND being able to afford a bigger house a few months down the road.

Maybe the next time some starstruck left-wingers are comparing her to Rosa Parks or are talking about what an incredible American hero she is for parroting the same anti-war lines they’ve been mouthing since the war started, they can publicly ask her if she’s making any money off of this just to put the whole thing to rest once and for all.”

To begin with, note the line about the book deal in the first paragraph. Interestingly enough, we now know that she was actually working on her book[1] when that blog post was written:

“After spending scorching August days with hundreds of war protesters at her makeshift camp near President Bush’s Crawford ranch, Cindy Sheehan slipped away each night to her tent or RV for a few quiet moments on her laptop.

…Now those journal entries are in her book, “Not One More Mother’s Child,” to be released Wednesday. The paperback also contains some of her speeches to peace groups earlier this year, letters to politicians and writings since leaving Crawford.”

But writing a book wasn’t the only way that Cindy Sheehan exploited her son’s death for notoriety and profit. She’s also bringing in some hefty speaker fees[2]:

“The State University College at Oneonta has booked a Fox News Channel military analyst to counter a lecture tonight by anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.

Lt. Col. Scott Rutter, who retired from the Army in November 2003 after leading a mechanized infantry battalion into Baghdad, will give a presentation sponsored by the student-run College Union Activities Council at noon Friday in the Hunt Union Square.

…Sheehan is getting paid $11,000 for the hour-long talk, while Rutter will receive his standard fee of $600 for his presentation, Dromgoole said.”

$11,000 bucks for an hour? That’s not quite Ann Coulter money, but it’s pretty good — especially to listen to a vapid, dishonest, and uninformed[3] woman spout anti-war cliches and publicly grieve for a son who died more than a year and a half ago. Milking your son’s death for money and attention is never pretty, but isn’t there some sort of time limit on it? Casey Sheehan was KIA on April 4, 2004 and “Saint Cindy” is still using his name every day to get press attention and put money in her pocket.

While any decent person has sympathy for the family and friends of soldiers who are injured or killed in the service of our country, there is something grotesque about making a career out of playing on those sympathies. Someone close to Cindy Sheehan should alert her to that fact if, somehow, she doesn’t know it already.

Endnotes:
  1. actually working on her book: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/19/sheehan.ap/
  2. hefty speaker fees: http://www.thedailystar.com/news/stories/2005/11/29/sheehan2.html
  3. vapid, dishonest, and uninformed: https://rightwingnews1.wpenginepowered.com/category.php?ent=4265

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