Disgraceful

The following is an open letter to Mark Hyman that has been sent to him regarding his recent “Short Takes” segment in which he cites the writing of “investigative journalist” Thomas Lipscomb as he attacks Cindy Sheehan, calling her “nutty” and insinuating that she only “professed” to love her son, offering as evidence the delay between his death and the placement of a permanent marker at his grave.

In my opinion, this is among the absolute worst of Hyman’s editorials. It goes beyond the typical ad hominem attack to the level of character assassination of the most unforgivable and despicable sort. I encourage you to go to the Newscentral.tv website and post a call for Hyman to make a public apology to Ms. Sheehan.


Mr. Hyman,

You’re wrong in your comments in your latest “Short Takes” segment.

You’re wrong about Casey Sheehan’s grave. It does have a headstone. If you kept up to date and checked your sources, you’d know that.

You’re wrong to use Thomas Lipscomb as a source for a commentary. He’s lied about his journalistic credentials, claiming to have been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his “coverage” of John Kerry in the 2004 election. He received no nomination.

You’re wrong to imply that someone who doesn’t immediately place a stone marker on a grave of a loved one doesn’t care for them. I grew up with a public cemetery just beyond my backyard. When I was a kid, I saw any number of graves which had simple placards for lengthy times before a permanent marker was installed. It’s not unusual. There are any number of reasons (economic, emotional, familial, etc.) why tombstones are often not put in place for a long time after a loved one has died.

You’re wrong to insinuate Cindy Sheehan doesn’t love her son because she’s ignored his grave. She hasn’t. By all reports, she has spent hour after hour, day after day, at his grave. She has said that she couldn’t think about putting up a monument with his name and day of his death inscribed in granite because, for a long time, this act would make his death seem painfully final. If you have ever lost a loved one before their time, you should know this.

You’re wrong to attack Cindy Sheehan personally. If you disagree with her politics, fine. Iit would be easy enough to say, “Ms. Sheehan has suffered a horrific loss, but that doesn’t mean she’s right about Iraq, and here’s why . . .” Attacking her as a person insults her and makes you look weak and cowardly. The fact that you are reduced to attacking a mother of a soldier killed in action tells your audience that you have no legitimate argument to make.

You’re wrong to juxtapose your attack on a dead soldier’s mom with your complaint on airport security officers who scanned and patted down Marines in an airport as they were returning the remains of a fallen comrade. How can one argue that it’s insensitive for a security officer to do his or her job in applying standard safety policy to these marines, but in literally the next breath attack the mother of a fallen soldier personally because you don’t agree with her politics?

You’re wrong when you claim that you respect the troops in Iraq, veterans, the military in general, and the families of soldiers. You don’t. You only respect them when it suits your purposes. If honoring, or even acknowledging, their service gets in the way of making a partisan political point, you don’t hesitate to ignore what they’ve done for the country. You did this time and time again with John Kerry, attacking the established record of a decorated combat veteran rather than debate him on the issues. And you’re doing it with Cindy Sheehan, a woman who has suffered the most painful loss imaginable—the loss of a child. Rather than debate her position, you mock her loss for no reason other than the fact that you disagree with her politics. Your respect for the military and military families is conditional: it comes a distant second to your love of your own political ideology.

You’re wrong if you think that saying Sheehan has opened herself up for such criticism absolves you of your immorality. You, and some of your political fellow travelers (most notably Ann Coulter), seem to think that simply speaking out publicly on an issue makes any attack, no matter how disgusting or cowardly, legitimate. No one says Sheehan (or the Jersey Girls, or Jack Murtha, or Max Cleland, or John McCain) can’t be criticized vigorously on the substance of their positions. What common sense and decency *do* suggest, however, is that their characters shouldn’t be attacked, particularly those aspects of their service or losses that most deserve our respect. If you want to denigrate Cindy Sheehan, at least have the basic decency to do so without insulting her and her son by suggesting she didn’t really love him.

You’re wrong on all of these issues. Wrong on the facts and wrong morally. Take a step back and look at what you’ve done. You’ve insulted and trivialized two of the things we hold most sacred in our culture: the death of a young person in service to his country, and the love of a mother for her child. And for what? To take an easy way out of actually engaging in a debate on the merits of an issue. Is this the sort of person you want to be? Is this a road you honestly wish to travel down?

It’s not too late. You can offer an on-air apology to Sheehan and your audience for your attack on her. You could explain that while you strongly disagree with her politics and think that she’s getting unwarranted attention because of her status as a grieving mother, mocking a mother’s grief for her son who died for his country is improper and unnecessary. You could admit that you made a mistake, and in so doing, come across as a much more reasonable (and hence, more persuasive) person than you have so far.

You’re wrong, but it’s not too late to do the right thing.

Regards,


Ted Remington