Independent: 16 Aug 2005 : The grieving mother who took on George Bush

[Benbow]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article306158.ece

Cindy Sheehan's soldier son Casey was killed near Baghdad. Now her one-woman protest at the gates of the US president's Texas ranch has become a metaphor for a nation's increasing unease about involvement in an unwinnable conflict.

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Cindy Sheehan herself is under few illusions about the limits of her mission, how even she may not escape Andy Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" rule. "Something might happen and this won't be the story anymore," she admits. But I don't want this to end. Ending the war is the story."

Speaking as a Brit, I think that one of the things that "works" powerfully to underline Cindy Sheehan's cause, visually - eg when she is getting across her message on tv around the world - is that, in her straw hat, she looks as if she walked straight out of The Grapes of Wrath or an old Western film (tough and courageous mother raising five children by herself on a ranch in the semi-desert, the man in her life having succumbed to drink or crime or gone away to herd cattle). To look at, she is far more interesting than the sharp-suited Hillary, bouffant-haired Barbara, or any voluptuous opportunist empty-headed White House intern.

Edited for typographical error.