Cindy Sheehan, right, hugs fellow war protester Bill Mitchell as he delivers a bouquet to her camp. Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, is camping out near President Bush's ranch to protest the president's Iraq policy AP
Posted on 08/11/2005 12:28:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Cindy Sheehan, right, hugs fellow war protester Bill Mitchell as he delivers a bouquet to her camp. Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, is camping out near President Bush's ranch to protest the president's Iraq policy AP
Vigil near Bush's ranch has drawn far more publicity than usual — and her share of critics
CRAWFORD - Cindy Sheehan has developed laryngitis from giving so many news media interviews. She has been forced to flee lightning, rainstorms and waterlogged ditches.
Nevertheless, the California woman whose son was killed in Iraq, and who is camping out near President Bush's ranch to protest the president's Iraq policy, is not complaining.
"This is beyond anybody's imagination," Sheehan said Wednesday of her sudden fame.
Sheehan has attracted national and international publicity — she also has developed a share of prominent critics — since arriving here Saturday and demanding to meet with the president to discuss the war that she believes is unjustified.
Protests near Bush's ranch are common. But Sheehan, with her questioning of whether her son died for the "noble cause" that Bush called the Iraq war a few days ago, has drawn far more attention than the usual protester.
Political analysts said Sheehan, 48, presents a sympathetic face during a war that polls show has become increasingly unpopular among Americans. Also, with Congress in recess, the Washington press corps is focused on events in Crawford during Bush's five-week stay.
Bush, who once met Sheehan at a reception with survivors of U.S. solders killed in Iraq, has not publicly acknowledged her presence near his Prairie Chapel Ranch.
Two of his policy aides met briefly with her after she led a protest rally Saturday, and now she is a magnet for an increasing number of visitors and expressions of support.
A caravan of people left from Houston Wednesday to join her roadside encampment near Waco.
Offers to provide her food and drink have poured in to help Sheehan maintain a vigil, which she vowed will last until the president agrees to see her or until his August stay here ends.
Some Swedes even donated portable toilets that were set up outside the Peace House here, which is run by liberal activists.
High-level meeting
The protest is expected to grow today as Bush meets at his ranch with his top foreign policy advisers, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to discuss Iraq and other issues.
Sheehan has been criticized by conservatives such as Fox television talk show host Bill O'Reilly, who accused her of changing her statements about Bush since last year and being manipulated by liberal activists.
Others such as Kathy Brooks, a counselor who ate at the Crawford Coffee Station on Wednesday, said that she understood Sheehan's grief but that the president is not to blame.
"The president did not make her son go," Brooks said. "He did have a choice."
Sheehan's oldest of four children, 24-year-old soldier Casey, was killed in Sadr City, Iraq, in April 2004, five days after he arrived.
Carroll Dougherty, a pollster for the Pew Research Center, said that a combination of factors, including the deadly attacks in Iraq on Marines from Ohio, has given Sheehan's protest prominence.
"The public is really, really anxious about Iraq right now," he said.
Sheehan said she is helping to underscore the human sacrifices for a war that she contends the White House has tried to sanitize with practices such as, until recently, banning the release of photographs of flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers.
Sheehan accused the president Wednesday of "sending our children to die in a war that is illegal and immoral."
Less critical of president
In June 2004 however, after she and others who lost family members in Iraq met with Bush in Washington state, she was less critical of the president in an interview with her local newspaper, The Reporter, of Vacaville, Calif.
Bush is "sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis," she told the newspaper. "I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith."
Sheehan also said then that she had qualms about the war but decided not to raise them with the president out of respect for her son's death.
Sheehan explained Wednesday that she made the statements "in a deep state of shock and a deep state of grief," and has since learned more about the U.S. mission in Iraq.
She expressed exasperation that critics have pounced on the change in her statements about Iraq at a time when the president's initial rationale for the war, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, has proven untrue and that the president cites different reasons for the military remaining in that country.
Sheehan said she will allow herself to be arrested if authorities try to remove her her from her site about five miles from the presidential ranch.
However, an officer with the McLennan County Sheriff's Department said there are no plans to remove her and her supporters.
Although surprised at the attention she has garnered, Sheehan has developed media savvy with assistance from the national public relations firm Fenton Communications, which has also worked with MoveOn.org, the liberal group that campaigned against Bush last year.
And after saying she would camp out every night in her tent, Sheehan made an exception Monday when she stayed in a bed-and-breakfast to prepare for an interview the next morning with ABC News.
Some who have joined Sheehan say they made impulsive decisions to come here after learning about her protest on Web sites and other media.
Matt Rosine, 29, a minister at the First Colony Christian Church in Sugar Land, said since he had the day off Wednesday he decided to jump in his car and drive to Crawford.
"I wanted to meet her (Sheehan) and say 'way to go,' " he said.
But Larry Mattlage, who owns the farm across the road from where Sheehan and her supporters are encamped, was not pleased by the new visitors, who hung protest signs in the trees. Sitting on his parked tractor across the road, Mattlage said he supported the right to protest but that the demonstrators should not be allowed to stay for prolonged periods.
"In the morning I usually wake up and see the morning sun," he said. "Now I wake up to stuff hanging in trees."
"Either she's not really paying attention, or she'll be the next being taken advantage of."
Just a little info about Bill's guest that he had on last night
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1460787/posts?page=502#502
To: Sam Hill
Well, well, well. As can be seen on this link US Tour of Duty, Dolores Kesterson is listed as a "witness". You can click on her name and get an idea of her opinion. This Tour of Duty group also links to Code Pink, MoveOn, and a bunch of other leftist sites. They are up front about being anti-war and anti-Bush.
Sam, I accidentally sent this to you as Freepmail. Just delete it.
502 posted on 08/10/2005 8:46:44 PM EDT by Miss Marple (Karl Rove is Plame-proof.)
By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 11, 2:43 AM ET CRAWFORD, Texas - The mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who started a quiet roadside peace vigil near President Bush's ranch last weekend is drawing supporters from across the nation.
Dozens of people have joined her, and others have sent flowers and food. One activist called her "the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement."
Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., says she was surprised at the response.
"Before my son was killed, I used to think that one person could not make a difference," she said Wednesday under a tent where she has slept since Saturday. "But one person that is surrounded and supported by millions of people can be heard."
But Kristinn Taylor, co-leader of the Washington, D.C., chapter of FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies, said Sheehan's actions are misguided and hurt troop morale.
"She has a political agenda that goes way beyond her son's death in combat," Taylor said. SNIP
Cindy Sheehan went to Crawford to ask President Bush, "Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?" Her son, Casey, 24, was killed in Iraq, on April 4, 2004. President Bush continues to refuse Cindy’s requests for a meeting, so she has made a stand outside his Crawford Ranch. At her side is CODEPINK''s Diane Wilson who began a hunger strike at their roadside vigil until Bush talks to Cindy. Show your solidarity with Cindy by joining us in Crawford, fasting with Diane, or BIRDDOG BUSH at his events throughout the country. Click here to check out daily blogs from Crawford and see who is fasting with Diane today.
This is all about anti-Bush, pro-LIBERAL power back in charge of the world.
She's a political hack using her son's death to advance her political agenda.
That's it!
Cry for the camera.
"The left is obsessed with the notion that they can return to the protest days of the 60s and 70s by recreating the same tactics at play during the Viet Nam War. Most of these tactics were developed by the brightest of Soviet Communist operatives at work in our universities. The residue of this influence is now trying its best to rear its ugly drug infested head in the world. The tools of the left are fools who would dismantle the moral framework of the Western Capitalistic system and slide down the primal ooze into a primitive tribal reto-Woodstock world."
Ah yes, but the residue(rs) must make certain to craft the message that the resultant collapse would occur in such a way that when the ooze smoothes out, they are in control--the prime oozers.
Too bad Al Qaeda does not have to worry about Cindy Sheehans in their midst.
It burns me up that the media never mentions that, not only did her son enlist voluntarily, he reenlisted!
There, that's out of the way :-)
The inconsistency which many see in Ms. Sheehan is that there are or have been (through the years) millions of Americans who have lost loved ones during wars.
The overwhelming majority of them do not carry on like this.
And don't get started on the "...died needlessly" drivel. Many, many more people died needlessly in various Civil War battles, or WW I (due to inept generals) than this. We took over an entire COUNTRY for less casualties than in a single day of fighting in a single battle in other wars.
The truth is that (as many other FReepers have stated) the left is promoting this to reinforce the "Bush Lied, People Died" mantra. NOTHING the left does is genuine, sincere, or spontaneous--it has been planned in the bowels of Ted Kennedy, the Hildabeest, or worse, before being rolled out. Think of Rush Limbaugh's term "journalistic fronts."
My feeling is that she is unhinged, and is being exploited by her new friends who push her and push her.
Situations like that seldom end well. I hope she likes her new friends, though.
Or ognoring the fact that their wives could have been so cold, so abusive, and otherwise so alienating that another woman looked much better in comparison.
I have consistently said that adultery is bad business, but in the larger picture people who abandon bad spouses and find better mates should be applauded.
I've got news for the news people. The only people who care about this are them. Yawn.
Ms. Sheehan should see the revenue ($$$) starting to flow her way any day now...
"I think her motivations are becoming abundantly clear."
EXACTLY!! She's a wacko old hippie trying to grab the limelight by setting up a new commune. I'm surprised Dr. FrankenDean, Dennis the Menace Kucinich or Max Cleland haven't stopped by for a photo-op. Can't imagine anyone wanting to hug her -- she must be really ripe by now! BTW -- where is her husband in all of this? Does anyone know?
Fair enough. Was not aware how deep this woman was into all-round anti-Bush nuttery. Thought she was just a single-issue grieving, hysterical mom. No more hedged defences from me.
The mainstream media SO wants to paint Iraq as another Vietnam. They don't have Walter Crankcase intoning on the nightly news about the body bags coming home, because there just aren't that many of them relative to the numbers of soldiers in country in either Iraq or Afghanistan. So they're trying to tout Cindy Sheehan as representative of the mothers of soldiers who have died. It ain't gonna happen. There are too many who are willing to stand up against her, grieving mother, or no.
And she's so perfect to help pass the August recess and try to ruin the few days Bush will have away from these jackels.
Actually, I can't think of a better illustration of leftist hypocrisy and ghoulishness than Cindy Sheehan. Trust me, the left has handed us an opportunity.
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