September 2005 - Hundreds of Thousands Protest Iraq War! Fox News Highlights Tiny Counter Protest!

[Median Democrat]

The folks who attended the tea bag protests should be ashamed at how easily they have let themselves be manipulated by Fox News. For example, contrast Fox News coverage of anti-war protests with its coverage of the relatively small tea bag protests.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0924-06.htm

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CIRCLING THE WHITE HOUSE

Many of them joined the anti-war march that circled a wide swath of downtown Washington, including the White House. They walked slowly, and often silently, and carried a blocks-long string of pictures of the 1,900 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq.

"We're here to bring a dose of reality to the American public," said Chad Hetman, a member of an anti-war veterans' group. "This war was based on lies."

The protesters were graying baby boomers who had railed against the Vietnam War, parents pushing strollers with toddlers, college students and a few adults in wheelchairs.

On Washington's National Mall, they set up a faux military cemetery of hundreds of small, white crosses in neat lines. In Los Angeles, 60 mock coffins draped in American flags were laid out in rows on a downtown street.

"This is what we are losing every day," said Vickie Castro, of Riverside, California, standing in front of the coffins with a picture of her son, Cpl. Jonathan Castro, who was killed in action in Mosul, Iraq, in 2004.

Demonstrations in Washington and London took aim at the Bush administration, calling its policies and actions "criminal."

Some protesters carried signs calling Bush and Cheney "Liars." One sign said, "Bush is a Cat 5 Disaster," in a reference to the recent hurricanes that have hammered the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Another said, "Make Levees, Not Humvees" -- referencing the New Orleans levees that Katrina breached and recalling the "Make Love, Not War" chant of 1960s Vietnam war protesters.

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So, did Fox News give the same sort of coverage it is now giving to teabag day with Fox News personalities spread across the Nation? What do you think?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170288,00.html

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Counter Anti-War Rally to Take On Sheehan

Joseph Williams has much in common with Cindy Sheehan (search), the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq whose protests outside the president's Texas ranch this summer made her the media-appointed queen of the anti-war movement.

Both lost a son in the conflict: Lance Cpl. Michael Jason Williams died fighting in Iraq on the third day of the U.S. invasion in March 2003, more than a year before Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was killed.

Both Williams and Sheehan hail from the same hometown: Vacaville, Calif., just outside Sacramento. And like other Gold Star (search) families — a term used when immediate family is killed in active conflict — they both preach a mantra of "supporting our troops."

But the similarities end there. While Sheehan is in Washington to lead an anti-war rally (search) Saturday at the president's other home, the White House, Williams has been on a bus tour across the country to meet the Sheehan contingent head-on and send a different message.

* * *

But Watts said he believes that Sheehan's bullish characterization of Bush and the war effort are unfair. He and his wife, Pamela Adle-Watts, met with the president and vice president during the inaugural ball in January.

"Bush is sympathetic to families," he said. "He talks and speaks from the heart."

Watts took particular issue with the media portrayal of Sheehan's efforts: he says Sheehan was demanding the attention of the president — despite already having met with him, along with other families of the war's casualties, in the summer of 2004.

"It snowballed into people believing the president wouldn't talk to her and that she was floundering around," Watts said. "She was trying to paint this false environment, trying to paint the president as a monster, and there was no truth to that."

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[jwirr]

1. Good one. I also thought about that first huge crowd in Washington

State when Obama spoke - wasn't it 75,000?

[OHdem10]

2. Even though the Conservatives and Libertarians are a minority

they cannot be dismissed----D.Guegen, CNN

For years I have observed the Media, and have drawn the conclusion
they fear Conservatives.

If there were ever a destructive insurrection, these are the more
likely candidates. There is a lot of real anger and hostility
below the surface.