No matter how you look at it, you lose.

The stories about Cindy Sheehan aren’t Fair and Balanced because Fair and balanced means you always have to offer an opposing side to every story. Fair and Balanced means you have to find a way to show that Cindy is a failure as a mother and an American because she wants an explanation rather than a palliative platitude.

Sooner or later they had to find someone to be a rallying point for those who are happy that their loved ones got blown to bits in Iraq. So there's no surprise that AP reported last night that at her son’s funeral at Tri-County Baptist Church in Ohio, Kathy Dyer delivered what she believed would have been her son's own message.

''It has been with the greatest pride I have served ... fighting to preserve freedom.'' Would have been is the key here. Would have been if what was weren’t what it is. We don’t know what he thought as he was blown to pieces by a roadside bomb– maybe it wasn’t “gee, it’s all right because we had elections.” In any event he never said it, and she made it up, but we need that for balance.

If this were a war with the objective of stopping international terrorism, she might have a point, so in her mind she makes it into one and makes herself a stooge for the cynical bastards who profit from this slaughter. But it’s not a war against anyone who attacked us; it’s not a war for freedom at all, unless you have to believe it was if you just can’t bear to believe that the kid you bore and raised died for nothing or worse than nothing: somebody’s profit. You have to believe that “they’re fighting for us” as somebody else’s mother said at the funeral – because it’s easier than admitting that your support of this government is the stupidest and most destructive thing you have ever done in your life or that your faith in Washington's Gang of Four is the root of all evil.

Don't kid yourself that this doesn't work. Some wacko from Waco destroyed a memorial constructed by Sherman's group to honor the fallen. Read about it here at Operation Truth. Rabble rousing works very well and there are always enough demented partisans to do any kind of dirty work, no matter how disgusting - Just ask Osama or Karl Rove.

So no matter how many vigils, no matter how many songs you sing or candles you light, they can come up with an opposite that they can use to keep anyone from being persuaded. We are stuck with this war and the war after that and the next one. War is forever, Greed is forever, lies are forever, stupidity is forever.