The Other Parents

Here's a piece from the father of a fallen soldier with one simple message: Cindy Sheehan does not speak for me. As powerful as the rhetorical strategy of her protest was at the beginning -- a grieving mother has great moral authority -- this message is equally powerful. Over the last week people have begun to position her as the moral authority, but if her position is grounded in the fact that she lost a child, then it isn't a position that's unique, and it's a rhetorical strategy that has built into its very nature the basis for challenging it.