I was fortunate enough to spend one long day up close with Cindy Sheehan about a year ago in Washington, D.C. I won’t pretend that we’re friends-- the couple of times that I have seen her since have brought visual recognition but she has had to be prompted to remember my name. But that day is worth recalling because it serves as a microcosm of what kind of life she has led over the past few years. 
          I was in Washington, D.C. attending a national convention of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, an organization designed to refute the idea that God is somehow a conservative Republican. Cindy Sheehan was scheduled to appear at an outdoor interfaith prayer gathering put on by the Network (and its head, Rabbi Michael Lerner) in Lafayette Park, just across the street from the White House. Having Cindy at the gathering was a blessing and a curse for the Network, and Rabbi Lerner lamented as much. Her being there guaranteed that the press would cover the event, giving the organization much-needed publicity, but then, the press would focus solely on her every move at the expense of anything else at the gathering. In the event, this is exactly what happened. Cindy made a beautiful and loving speech, one of two she made that day and evening, but the only thing that made the news was her one unflattering reference to the president while pointing back at the White House. There were many exquisite prayers and speeches given by religious and spiritual people of all stripes, but the press focused on one sentence from Cindy.
          This is not to paint Cindy as a saint- she isn’t.  She’s a career mom with no prior experience in being a national figure. She said quite a few things, especially at first, coming right from her heart (or shooting from her hip) without thinking about the ramifications of the twelve-second soundbite. But she has had only one overriding concern during the whole of her public life— to spare mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, and children the pain that she went through when a couple of soldiers knocked on her door and informed her that her son was dead.
Her critics, and they are many, especially those on the Right, are quick to point out that Casey Sheehan volunteered for the army and that he was perfectly aware of what he was getting into. This is the lie at the heart of the matter. Shiite militiamen who were guarding their neighborhood turf— enemies of both al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, killed Casey. It is only if you continue to buy into the whole house of lies that the Bush administration has built that you can still maintain the fiction that Casey Sheehan ‘knew what he was getting into’.
After the prayer gathering, about 200 people marched the short distance across the street to deliver a petition signed by 40,000 people urging President Bush not to use military force against Iran. The guard at the gate said the White House could not accept the petition. Think of the sad irony of that. In any event, we committed a clear case of civil disobedience by shoving 7,000 pieces of paper full of signatures through the White House gates and onto the lawn and driveway, where they blew all over the lot. The DC police just stood there and watched us litter the White House lawn. They then allowed about 300 hundred people, far less than was legal, to march right down a major boulevard without a permit on the way to then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s house. It was obvious that this was because the DC police liked Cindy.
          I,  Zelig-like, found myself at Cindy’s side throughout all of this. We talked of family, churches, soccer, softball, and Northern California, where we’re both from. We laughingly tried to remember old softball chants to use as anti-war slogans. Through the whole march, Cindy was a polarizing figure, a hero to most who recognized her, but a terrible villain to a vocal few. The things those few people shouted at her were amazingly awful. She just smiled at them and kept singing.
          The purpose of our visit to Donald Rumsfeld’s house was a symbolic follow-up to an infamous after-speech Q & A in which ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern infiltrated a friendly gathering of administration supporters (these are the only places administration officials dare to speak) and asked Rumsfeld some stunningly indicting questions. The SecDef stammered through a couple of non-answers and McGovern was hustled out of the room.
Ray McGovern was with us on the march that afternoon, armed with a bullhorn, to ask Donald Rumsfeld the same questions again, although Mr. Rumsfeld most certainly wasn’t home, and even if he was, there was no way he was going to lower himself to our presence. The media was there, and that, I suppose, was the point. When we arrived at Donald Rumsfeld’s home, we were met by a handful of his supporters who apparently keep a vigil in front of his house. The sight of Cindy Sheehan sent them into spasms of vitriolic convulsions. What happened next was beyond belief, and if I wasn’t right there to see it, I wouldn’t have believed it. While Cindy and about ten people sat down on the ground in a circle and sang gospel songs and hymns, these Rumsfeld supporters, including a young girl of about twelve or thirteen, got right in Cindy’s face and shouted obscene and hateful things to her about how her son was a hero but she was a @%$##^ and a $^%*%#. Throughout this onslaught, she put her two index fingers in her ears and childlike, sang, “La-la-la-la”. She didn’t respond with the slightest bad word or gesture. I wanted to fall right off of my peace-nik wagon and clock these people. This terribly uncomfortable scene unfolded for about an hour, before dying of exhaustion.
          In the final movement of this opera, we hitched a ride with an Iraqi ex-patriot back to the church where the conference was happening. The driver, a man in his 50s, was full of gratitude for what Cindy was doing, and urged her to continue her fight. It put to rest another right-wing lie, that all Iraqis in the US were supportive of the American presence in Iraq.
          Cindy Sheehan has never wavered from her original purpose. She has said many times, to skeptical ears, that it wasn’t a case of right or left, but of right and wrong. Neither Right nor Left apparently believed her. As long as Cindy’s laser beams were pointed directly at the Bush administration, both sides thought they knew exactly who she was, and both sides used her for their own purposes. When the Democrats regained control of Congress in the fall of 2006, Cindy refocused her laser. The continuing timidity and stutter-stepping of congressional Democrats regarding funding of the war has led to increasing criticism from Cindy Sheehan. Now, many of the journalists and bloggers on the Left have started turning on Cindy Sheehan. This was clearly not who she was supposed to be.
This, in turn, has broken Ms. Sheehan’s spirit. She could take it from the Right— what else could anyone expect? But now that she is being criticized from all sides, especially from the very people for whom she has given her health, her money, her marriage, and precious time from the rest of her family, she has surrendered. After all, she is just a mom from Vacaville, California, whose son was killed in a war that she doesn’t believe in.