Sheehan for Congress!

It is hard to believe that the nutroots lurking in the fever swamps of the hard left can possibly belive that somehow Nancy Pelosi is not a sincere enough believer in the bnutroots preferrred strategy of retreat, surrender and defeat in the face of Muslim aggression. However, it seems that at least one nut does indeed believe exactly that. Acccording to Breitbart News, Cindy Sheehan will challenge Nancy Pelosi in the 2008 Congressional elections.

Sheehan's reasons for challenging Pelosi are that she claims Pelosi isn't working hard enough to hand the Muslim terrorists victory in the Iraq campaign. Breitbart reports that,

Sheehan, a Californian, officially announced that she intends to run as an independent against Pelosi in 2008 if the San Francisco congresswoman doesn't move to impeach Bush by July 23, the day she expects to reach Washington.

However, those are not the only reasons Sheehan has decided to run for office. She also says that,

Bush should be impeached because she believes he misled the public about the reasons for going to war, violated the Geneva Convention with the torture of detainees and crossed the line by commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

These statements show such an incredible lack of understanding that is it hard to know where to begin. Her claim that Bush "misled the public" has been debiunked often enough thatr we should not need to do it again here. However, for anyone who somehow has managed to completely close their ears, let's recap. Bush used Hussein's proven possession of weapons of mass destruction as the main rationnale for his removal of Hussein, based on analysis from every single intellignce agency at the time. In addition, every major Democratic leader had made similar statements prior to Bush's election, and the U.S. Congress, on the basis of information that was less alarming than that showed to the President voted to give Bush the authority to proceed against Hussein. No one was misled, though the aftermath clearly showed that our Intelligence either was seriously in error or Hussein managed to successfully hide his wepons program before his removal. In either case, acting on the best information available at the time, no matter whether it was correct or not, does not constitute "misleading".

As for the Geneva Convention argument, let us remind Ms. Sheehan of the following:

• The United States signed andd ratified the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, which specifically restrict their scope to organized armed forces and specifically exclude groups such as Hezbollah and al-Quaeda from its protections.


• The additional Geneva Protocols of 1977, which did extend the protections of the Geneva Conventions to terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Quaeda, were signed in 1977 but never ratified by the United States, thus per the United States Constitution those Protocols do not bind us, despite what some judges may think.

That anyone would even make this argument shows that they are entirely ignorant both of the terms of the U.S. Constitution, and also the terms of the actual Geneva Conventions signed and ratified by the United States. So let me remind Ms. Sheehan of the actual text of the Constitution on the topic:
"He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur."
The preceding refers to the fact that the President may sign a treaty, as President Carter did in 1977, but that without the concurrence of two-thirds of the Sernate, it is not legally binding. Although President Carter signed the Protocols, the Senate refused to ratify, thus the protocols do not bind the United States. If Ms. Sheehan wishes to become a member of Congress, it might behoove her to actually know the text of the document she swears to uphold.

As for Sheehan's accusations of torture, she has a curiously narrow definition. Apprently it is only torture when it is done by Americans to Muslims? However, I find her thoughts on the subject difficult to take seriously until and unless she condemns the actions taken by our enemies with as much fervor as she uses to condemn her own countrymen. We have not beheaded anyone, nor have we forced them to plead, or forcibly converted them to any other religion. All of this has been done by the Mulsims we are fighting, yet i do not recall Sheehan or anyone else on the Left issuing condemnations. Have they forgotten the rapes of the captured Supply Corps soldiers? Or is it that the dignity and rights of the Muslim terrorists are more dear to them than the dignity and rights of their own countrymen and women?

Finally to address her last accusation, that of the President "crossing the line by commuting Lewis Libby's sentence". Ms. Sheehan, the constitution specifically give the President the power to do precisely that. While I do not necessarily agree that he ought to have intervened in this case, he absolutely has the power to commute and even pardon anyone other than those impeached and removed from office. Thus to claim that he somehow "over-stepped" shows again a lack of familiarity with the powers specifically granted to the president under the Constitution.

If Sheehan wishes to run against Pelosi, she is welcome. One far-left hypocrite replacing another will not affect the balance of power in the House. But her lack of familiarity with her own Constitution and her self-serving moral equivalency make her more a buffoon than a serious contender.