LA Times: Mother's Protest at Bush's Doorstep Raises the Stakes

[Stephanie]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warmom11aug11,1,1016679.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=1&cset=true

August 11, 2005

Mother's Protest at Bush's Doorstep Raises the Stakes
By Edwin Chen and Dana Calvo, Times Staff Writers

CRAWFORD, Texas — For more than a year, a modest bungalow known as "Peace House," located a few miles from President Bush's ranch, has served as a headquarters for antiwar activists. It is lonely work, with little more than a skeleton crew on hand much of the time.

But then Cindy Sheehan hit town.

***

"I don't believe his phony excuses for the war," she said of Bush in an interview with a CBS reporter for the network's Northern California affiliates. "I want him to tell me why my son died.

"If he gave the real answer, people in this country would be outraged — if he told people it was to make his buddies rich, that it was about oil."

Sheehan is certainly not the first to denounce the president over the war. From the beginning, activists have been outspoken in criticizing Bush's policy and his stated reasons for sending U.S. troops into Iraq.

For the moment however, the personal nature of Sheehan's protest — with its edge of raw emotion — and the concentration of news media staked out in Crawford, where Bush is spending much of August, have combined to raise her voice above the crowd.

"Anything that focuses media and public attention on Iraq war casualties day after day — particularly that is a good visual for television, like a weeping Gold Star mother — is a really bad thing for President Bush and his administration," said independent political analyst Charlie Cook.

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. I wish Paul Hackett would go down there

I don't think he will, he was on some show yesterday saying he was going on vacation. Darn it.


http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/690908

[nookiemonster]

2. Something like this should nullify political views.

Any self respecting human being would have empathy for this courageous woman.

[Stephanie]

3. well you've hit the nail

Whether George Bush is human is debatable.