Anti-War Mom
If any of you were watching Anderson Cooper's 360 on CNN on Monday night, you might have seen a woman named Pat Vogel standing next to the anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. Pat happens to be my aunt and has become quite the anti-war protestor herself ever since her son (my cousin) was deployed to Iraq a couple of years ago. He came home in one piece after a few close calls, but the experience turned her and my uncle into passionate protestors against the war.
My aunt and uncle have been trying to get as much media attention as possible and have appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and several cable outlets during their anti-war campaign. But neither of them has caught the media's attention like Cindy Sheehan, who is been camping outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford for more than a week now.
Tonight, there are more than 1500 vigils (yes, one thousand, five hundred) vigils planned across the country to support Cindy Sheehan's message. All of them happen at 7:30pm in the various time zones and will be attended by anywhere from 20 to 2,000 people depending on the locations.
Are you surprised that Cindy Sheehan has become such a big story in mainstream media? What do you think of her demands to meet President Bush? He has already met with her once before she started this stunt, and he certainly doesn't have time to meet the family members of every fallen soldier killed in Iraq. Do you think there will be any political fallout against Bush or, more importantly, the Republican hawks who support this war and may still be dealing with it in the 2008 elections?
My aunt and uncle have been trying to get as much media attention as possible and have appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and several cable outlets during their anti-war campaign. But neither of them has caught the media's attention like Cindy Sheehan, who is been camping outside of President Bush's ranch in Crawford for more than a week now.
Tonight, there are more than 1500 vigils (yes, one thousand, five hundred) vigils planned across the country to support Cindy Sheehan's message. All of them happen at 7:30pm in the various time zones and will be attended by anywhere from 20 to 2,000 people depending on the locations.
Are you surprised that Cindy Sheehan has become such a big story in mainstream media? What do you think of her demands to meet President Bush? He has already met with her once before she started this stunt, and he certainly doesn't have time to meet the family members of every fallen soldier killed in Iraq. Do you think there will be any political fallout against Bush or, more importantly, the Republican hawks who support this war and may still be dealing with it in the 2008 elections?
posted by cvo @ 1:58 PM
1 Comments:
At 6:59 AM,
Unknown said…
I am not surprised by the popularity of the story about Sheehan. It's an interesting story, after all.
It seems to me that if the President were, in response to Sheehan's protest, to meet with Sheehan, then he would set a precedent that would encourage other, similar protests. So the right thing for him to do---if he doesn't want to encourage a string of protests at his ranch---is not to meet with her. Of course, there may be little that Bush can do now because the popularity of the current protest may lead to a repeat performance on his next retreat to his ranch. Maybe Bush will just avoid the ranch for the remainder of his Presidency. It will be interesting to see how this turns out in any event.
I think that Sheehan's protest and those organized in sympathy with hers will not have serious political consequence. The sheer fact of a continued military effort itself will be an interesting and powerful enough topic to spur political debate at election time.
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