The Antiwar War
Sam Coates writes in The Washington Post: "With six days remaining until Sheehan's self-imposed deadline to leave Crawford, Tex., there seems little sign of her antiwar efforts ending with her departure. In a briefing for reporters, Sheehan said she is planning an antiwar bus tour of the country next month, ending Sept. 24 in Washington, where she plans to set up a permanent vigil until Bush agrees to meet with her, as she has sought in Texas."
Sheehan's group and a group of counter-protesters are both planning major rallies for Saturday.
Coates writes: "Questioned about the Sheehan protest, White House officials invoked words Bush used after Sept. 11 to stress the importance of current overseas operations.
" 'On September 14, 2001, [the president] stood at the National Cathedral and told all of America that this was going to be a very long and difficult war, and that there were going to be some very trying moments, but that because of what happened on 9/11, that we had to view the world in a different way,' White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. . . .
"The antiwar protesters responded Thursday with an emotional ceremony, carried live on national television, in which Sheehan was presented with the boots worn by her son before he was killed. She tearfully laid them before a small cross bearing her son's name, surrounded by dozens of supporters. There were sobs from other women whose sons were killed in Iraq."
Peter Wallsten writes in the Los Angeles Times: "Thursday's scene at Camp Casey illustrated how Sheehan's once apparently Quixote-like protest has ballooned, giving war opponents a champion that had been lacking since former Democratic Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont stumbled in his efforts to win the White House on a largely antiwar platform."
The Associated Press reports: "The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to join peace activist Cindy Sheehan, known as the Peace Mom, on Sunday near President Bush's Texas ranch."
The Two-Meeting Mom
The White House has frequently pointed out that Bush already met with Cindy Sheehan once.
Blogger Eli Stephen calls attention to Dawn Rowe, an Iraq war widow, who just met with Bush for the second time.
Poll Watch
Will Lester writes for the Associated Press: "An overwhelming number of people say critics of the Iraq war should be free to voice their objections -- a rare example of widespread agreement about a conflict that has divided the nation along partisan lines. . . .
"More than half of those polled, 53 percent, say the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq. That level of opposition is about the same as the number who said that about Vietnam in August 1968, six months after the Tet offensive -- the massive North Vietnamese attack on South Vietnamese cities that helped turn U.S. opinion against that war. Various polls have shown that erosion of war support has been faster in Iraq than during the Vietnam War in the 1960s."
Here are the poll results. Among the findings:
