(CNSNews.com) - Like many other anti-war demonstrators, Cindy Sheehan has been waiting for the 2,000th American to be killed in Iraq. When that happened on Tuesday, Sheehan, the mother of one of those slain soldiers, resumed her protest in front of the White House -- a tactic that one of her critics called "desperate.""She will do anything to get publicity. Cindy Sheehan has been blown off the public map by [Hurricane] Katrina and [Hurricane] Wilma. She is desperate," said David Horowitz, the co-founder of the Los Angeles-based Center for the Study of the Popular Culture and a former 1960s radical turned conservative. "Cindy Sheehan has gone from disgracing her son's memory to becoming a caricature of someone who exploits a tragedy for her own self aggrandizement, to someone who is on her way to becoming a rich and famous harridan," Horowitz told Cybercast News Service.
Horowitz added that Sheehan has "nothing interesting to say, except to parrot lines written by [left-wing filmmaker] Michael Moore and [former U.S. Attorney General] Ramsey Clarke. "Who cares what Cindy Sheehan thinks? The only thing she has done in her life is given birth to a heroic young man who she has, in word and deed, disowned," Horowitz added, referring to Sheehan's son Casey, who was killed while serving in Iraq in 2004.
On Tuesday, a moment the anti-war movement had been anticipating for weeks, the 2,000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq, according to media reports. A coalition of groups, including Gold Star Families for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out and the American Friends Service Committee were planning nationwide "events" to claim that "the country's pro-peace majority wants Congress to stop the deaths by stopping the dollars that are funding the war."
But Horowitz dismissed the anti-war left as a movement to help the terrorists win the battle for Iraq. "[Two thousand military deaths is] a small price to pay for the freedom of 50 million people [in Iraq], not to mention the safety of 300 million [in the U.S.]," Horowitz said.
"We have not been attacked since 9/11. There is only one reason for that and that is young men and women like Casey Sheehan were willing to give their lives for the rest of us, which makes even more disgusting the lack of gratitude of his own mother and all the people gathered with her for that sacrifice," he added.
Sheehan's fading media star has been noted by other media outlets.
An Oct. 17 article in the San Francisco Tri Valley Herald newspaper was titled, "Peace Mom Slips From Public Stage" and noted that Sheehan's "name is fading from headlines." The article quoted Columbia University professor and former 1960s anti-war activist Todd Gitlin, as noting that Sheehan lacked the "star status and historical staying power of some 1960s activists ..."
Sheehan's decision to move to Berkeley, Calif., following the breakup of her marriage, might also accelerate the dimming of her celebrity as a grieving mom from Middle America. Instead, she will increasingly be seen as a promoter for the radical left, according to Horrowitz.
"I needed a place to stay and some friends got me an apartment," Sheehan said, according to the Berkeley Daily Planet. But Horowitz noted that Berkeley is a bastion of left-wing politics and said the relocation was "the perfect place for Sheehan."
Sheehan also recently signed a contract with the speaker's bureau Speaking Matters LLC. Representatives from the group have not returned repeated requests from Cybercast News Service to discuss Sheehan's schedule and speaking fees.
