Cindy Sheehan. Cindy Sheehan. Cindy Sheehan.
I only do that to satisfy what I assume is a "Cindy Sheehan name content quota" in place for any newspaper article written on any subject related to the War in Iraq, whether it's about her or not.
On the website for the Waco Tribune, you'll find an article about counter-protest to Cindy Sheehan's anti-war Crawford camporee (thanks to The Anchoress for the pointer) that's gearing up. Here's how the article describes the counter-protest:
Johnson alluded to a forthcoming caravan scheduled to arrive in Crawford next Saturday after snaking through the southwest from San Francisco. The event, called “You Don't Speak for Me, Cindy,” is being led by a mother who has a Marine son.
Note that the article couldn't even mention the name of Deborah Johns, the woman who is leading the caravan. Her name wasn't difficult to find. It took me a bit under thirty seconds and a Google search to locate this page, on the website of the group sponsoring the protest.
The article does, however, mention Cindy Sheehan. In fact, it mentions her by name eight times, by my count, even though the article is only tangentially about her. That's eight times more than it names Ms. Johns and five times more than it names people supportive of Johns, even though Johns' protest in support of the war is the actual subject of the article.
If I were the cynical and untrusting type, I'd think the Waco Tribune felt the need to shove Sheehan's name in our faces at every opportunity while not spending the few seconds required to learn the name of Deborah Johns because it believed that the former was far more important than the latter. But I'm not the cynical and untrusting type, am I?
Cindy Sheehan. There. That's eight. Tell the editors at the Waco Tribune that I've filled my quota.
