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Protest by a grieving mother gains momentum - Cindy Sheehan
Houston Chronicle ^ | August 11, 2005 | Bennett Roth

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Texas; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antiwar; bush; cindysheehan; military; peacehouse; stopusingcindy; usefulidiots; wot
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I've noticed the Houston Chronicle imbeds a LINK in their stories when they want to promote a site.

"Flip-flopping"Americans-Right-wing bloggers are attacking military mom Cindy Sheehan (FR mentioned)

LINK to Post#223 - FReeper tgslTakoma's rebuttal to the "flip-flopping" column LINKED above

Cindy Sheehan: "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel."


Cindy Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., President of Gold Star Families for Peace and mother who lost her son, U.S. Army Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan, who was serving in Iraq, speaks on a phone near the ranch owned by U.S. President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas August 7, 2005. About 70 anti-war protesters shouting 'bring the troops home' from Iraq gathered near the president's ranch on Saturday, prompting two White House officials to come out to meet with mothers who lost their children in combat in Iraq. REUTERS/Larry Downing

1 posted on 08/11/2005 12:28:41 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

How You Can Help Cindy Sheehan
by periphrastik
Tue Aug 9th, 2005 at 12:32:17 PDT
http://dailykos.com/story/2005/8/9/153217/8547


2 posted on 08/11/2005 12:33:01 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Ms. Sheehan recently wrote that, "Again, I did tons of interviews. It looks like I will be on the cover of People Magazine. Time Magazine, Vanity Fair and Oprah's magazine will be interviewing me also."

I think her motivations are becoming abundantly clear.

3 posted on 08/11/2005 12:33:01 AM PDT by JennysCool (Non-Y2K-Compliant)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Look at this "sad" mama grin.


4 posted on 08/11/2005 12:33:59 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: JennysCool; Mo1; All

***...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. ...***


5 posted on 08/11/2005 12:34:33 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

This protest has such an impromptu, real life, spur of the moment feel to it. LOL.


6 posted on 08/11/2005 12:34:42 AM PDT by zarf
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To: Mo1

Gag alert advised.


7 posted on 08/11/2005 12:35:06 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: The Red Zone

8 posted on 08/11/2005 12:35:24 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: The Red Zone

*L* ... sorry about that


9 posted on 08/11/2005 12:35:53 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

whata showboater.


10 posted on 08/11/2005 12:35:57 AM PDT by wildcatf4f3 (whats wrong with a draft?)
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To: JennysCool

Like the sick Phelps church, she just wants all the publicity she can get.


11 posted on 08/11/2005 12:36:30 AM PDT by The Red Zone (Florida, the sun-shame state, and Illinois the chicken injun.)
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To: zarf; Mo1

***....Way to go, Cindy Sheehan. I was astonished to see you respectfully interviewed tonight by Greta Van Susteren on FOX. But now you've gotten top billing -- and five whole paragraphs -- in Maureen Dowd's column. You've definitely arrived. What's next? Charlie Rose? I hope not. I hope you're on Oprah and Montel and all the shows that average Americans watch. They need to see your fight, your grief, your plain sincerity, your considerable issues knowledge, and your homespun gumption.....***


http://social-democrat.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/9/234616/0232


12 posted on 08/11/2005 12:36:46 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: wildcatf4f3

shes completely forgotten about her son and his wishes. She is decadent


13 posted on 08/11/2005 12:37:55 AM PDT by wildcatf4f3 (whats wrong with a draft?)
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To: zarf

Bill Mitchell of Atascadero, Calif., as the two stand on the side of the road that leads to the ranch of President Bush, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2005, in Crawford, Texas. Her simple, quiet protest of the war that took her son's life is gaining momentum as dozens joined her Wednesday at the site. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
14 posted on 08/11/2005 12:39:03 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1460787/posts?page=810#810


15 posted on 08/11/2005 12:39:06 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Somebody...SOMEBODY...NEEDS TO NIP THIS IN THE BUD ASAP!


16 posted on 08/11/2005 12:41:09 AM PDT by hoagy62 (Revolution is now the only option....)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

All Cindy, all the time. If only as much attention was paid to ... oh, I don't know... lots of other things. Big projects coming up. Big projects that have to be finished. And whatever happened to Natalee Holloway?


17 posted on 08/11/2005 12:41:18 AM PDT by RustysGirl
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To: All
BILL MITCHELL in Photo - Post #14.:

Father Who Believes Son is in 'Coffin' Photo Thanks Seattle Times for Running It

By Greg Mitchell, Editor and Publisher

***The father of a U.S. Army soldier killed in Iraq earlier this month, who believes his son was in one of the caskets shown in the now famous Tami Silicio photograph, has written a letter to The Seattle Times thanking the newspaper for publishing the picture that broke a Pentagon ban. "Hiding the death and destruction of this war does not make it easier on anyone except those who want to keep the truth away from the people," the father, Bill Mitchell, wrote yesterday...................***

18 posted on 08/11/2005 12:42:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Mo1

Check Post #18.


19 posted on 08/11/2005 12:43:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: JennysCool
Cindy Sheehan has become a focal point of the left much like Michael Moore became with his Fahrenheit 911. All of her rhetoric can be summed up with the words, 'I don't like the sacrifice of American life for the cause of freedom.' Such thinking is rooted in a selfishness that only comes from a severe narcissistic personality disorder.
20 posted on 08/11/2005 12:45:08 AM PDT by jonrick46
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