Is Cindy Sheehan the spark igniting an antiwar movement that threatens the Bush presidency? Or is she just an over-hyped flicker that will be extinguished with the next turn of the news cycle?
The White House is counting on it being the latter. As the Washington Post's Jim VandeHei explained in a Live Online discussion yesterday: "The White House thinks this whole story is a silly obsession of bored reporters with nothing better to do during the slow August."
But with more than a thousand Sheehan-inspired vigils all over the country last night -- and a national conversation unleashed -- there are reasons to think the White House may be wrong.
A Conversation
Joe Garofoli writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Vacaville resident Cindy Sheehan camped out near President Bush's vacation ranch in Crawford, Texas, in the hope of inspiring a national conversation about the war.
"Her plea for Bush to explain what 'noble cause' her son Casey died for in Iraq last year also has inspired a national conversation about Sheehan. And her name has become shorthand for what people think of the war.
"Sheehan has been called everything from a 'kook' to an anti-Semite by conservative bloggers and pundits over the past few days. But it's clear her message is reaching new audiences. . . .
"Whether one supports Sheehan's position or not, she put the war back on the front pages in the middle of August and brought the war home to suburbia in a way other antiwar organizers hadn't been able to do."
The Vigils
Edwin Chen writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Antiwar demonstrators staged candlelight vigils around the country Wednesday evening, freshly energized by the tenacity of Cindy Sheehan, the California mother of a fallen soldier, who has camped out for almost two weeks near President Bush's central Texas ranch, demanding a face-to-face meeting with him.
"In Washington, 400 to 500 demonstrators gathered silently in front of the White House -- one of a dozen or so vigils scheduled for the nation's capital and its suburbs."
Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times: "Supporters of Cindy Sheehan held more than 1,500 candlelight vigils across the country on Wednesday night in solidarity with this mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, who has set up a protest encampment down the road from President Bush's ranch here. . . .
"Organizers said the response showed how Ms. Sheehan had become a catalyst for an antiwar movement that had been relatively unfocused since the 2004 presidential campaign.
"'She's like a herald, waking everybody up,' said Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn.org."
