Using human shields is the work of cowards. The S-CHIP Controversy

Using human shields is the work of cowards.

This is true whether it’s Islamofascists hiding behind civilians to carry out attacks on American troops, knowing that our rules of engagement forbid firing into non-combatants, or people who use women and children as cannon fodder to advance their own political ends.

Nevertheless, the urge to do so seems to be irresistible to the Left.

It’s become a staple of humor to assume a headline in the New York Times or the Washington Post if God were to announce the end of the world:

“End of the World, Women and Children Worst Hit.”

It’s not really too far afield. Try Googling “women and children worst hit” and you will find over 2.4 million hits.

It has been remarkably effective. We have been told to do any number of things “for the children.” Google that phrase and you get a remarkable 688 million hits. Michael McGough describes this phenomenon in his article in the LA Times : The cult of 'for the children'

As Maureen Dowd infamously described it, some people are awarded “absolute moral authority.” Unfortunately for Mo Dowd, she was describing Cindy Sheehan when she was being portrayed as “Mother Sheehan” by the Kossaks and the “Netroots” on the Left – a distraught mother of a slain soldier – who could do or say anything without fear of contradiction because of her status. That, of course was before Ms. Sheehan was exposed as a deranged supporter of Venezuelan “President” Hugo Chavez and a fellow traveller of the group that is camping out in Nancy Pelosi’s front yard. We don’t hear much from the Dowd crowd about “Mother Sheehan’s” “absolute moral authority” since she began attacking the icons of the Left from the vastness of the fever swamps.

But children are usually used as shields behind which cowards hide. Michelle Malkin documented three instances where Democrats have pushed children forward, expecting that "the cult of the child" would intimidate the opposition. Unfortunately, the children in question were not what they appeared to be.

In 1996, Hillary Clinton propped up young Jennifer Bush, a 7-year-old with mystery ailments whose mother coached her to lobby for universal health care. Jennifer was trotted out to present the Clintons a lucky silver dollar "to bring you good luck so everyone can have good insurance." Jennifer's mother was later convicted of aggravated child abuse and welfare fraud for misrepresenting $60,000 in assets on Medicaid forms.

Lest anyone complain that Malkin is making this up, here’s CNN, which has been called the Clinton News Network and must have been gritting it’s corporate teeth as it reported this story.

Sometimes the "absolute moral authority" is an elderly or sick person woman.

In 2000, Al Gore propped up elderly widow Winifred Skinner to lambaste high drug prices. Gore repeated her claim that she had to pick up cans on the side of the road to pay for medicine. Dan Rather bemoaned: "She's no child, but she belongs on a poster about high drug costs." One problem: Winifred's own well-to-do son, businessman Earl King, debunked those claims.


In 2004, John Kerry propped up Mary Ann Knowles, a breast cancer patient whom he claimed "had to keep working day after day right through her chemotherapy, no matter how sick she felt, because she was terrified of losing her family's health insurance." The conservative Manchester Union Leader editorial page reported: "Knowles chose to work through most, but not all, of her chemotherapy because her husband was out of a job. She and husband John did not want to take the pay cut that would have come with disability leave, so Mary Ann kept working."

If the country is filled with victims of of an evil "system" why can't the Left find real victims instead of fake ones?

Perhaps for the same reason that the "soldiers" who tell lurid tales of committing atrocities in Iraq are the fakers like Jesse Macbeth - the ones who are embraced as "truth tellers" by the bottom feeding swamp dweller of the Left.

And today we have human shield Graeme Frost, push into the limelight by an unholy combination of parents and politician to be the poster child for creating a middle class health care entitlement for people earning as much as $80,000 per year.

And people, who try to report the facts about the Frosts, people like Michelle Malkin, are vilified as “stalkers” by cretins who publish the wish that she should be shot.

But she is doing the job that the MSM will not do because they are not interested in delivering the truth to your doorstep. Like the enablers in Iraq who provide refuge to the killers who hide behind women and children, the members of the MSM – like Matthew Hay Brown of the Baltimore Sun who has not responded to my e-mail – push the children forward in the expectation that we will be left defenseless.

The truth is, we don’t blame the twelve year old Graeme Frost. He is like the people on Golgotha of whom Jesus said “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” The guilty parties are the Frost parents and the Democrats who decided to push this poor little boy into the fray ahead of them, to catch the bullets and hoping to make him a martyr.

Like any terrorist, they are despicable. And anyone who enables them deserves our rebuke.