A Mother And the President
A woman lost her son in Iraq and won't leave George W. Bush alone until he sees her. Who is she, and why is she stirring such emotion?
By BY AMANDA RIPLEY IN CRAWFORD
Posted Sunday, Aug. 14, 2005
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1093760,00.html?cnn=yesCindy Sheehan, 48, is not a natural-born revolutionary. She speaks in a high, almost childlike voice. She says like as often as any teenager, as in, "This whole thing was like so freaking spur of the moment." When her supporters gather to discuss strategy, Sheehan is not to be found in the circle of beach chairs; she is 50 yards up the road, doing yet another interview, hugging yet another stranger. But here she is, the mother of Casey, 24, who died in Iraq last year, and now the central character in the strange, swirling protest she initiated two miles down the road from President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Sheehan is unflinching about why she's here. She says George W. Bush killed her son. She demands that U.S. troops come home now, and she insists on telling that to Bush personally. She speaks without caveat. "I'm not afraid of anything since my son was killed," she says. But she has never been one to move quietly through life. Father Michael McFadden, a priest she once worked for, calls her "very defiant, very stubborn, very strong willed" when dealing with authority. When a soldier from the local base comes by to argue with her, she asks him to go for a walk. She puts her arm around him. Soon they are hugging. Her friends call her Attila the Honey.
Sheehan's impulsive decision to come to Crawford--with five people, some chairs and no flashlights--has spawned a small phenomenon. A busload of counterprotesters, organized by a conservative radio personality in Dallas, arrived to sing God Bless America. A Japanese peace-activist group donated money for Porta Potties. Chad Griffin, a Los Angeles--based p.r. agent who worked in the Clinton White House, came up with the idea of cutting an ad featuring Sheehan's plea to speak with Bush. With $12,000 in donations, the ad is running in Crawford.
That's exactly the kind of move the White House hopes will play into its hands. Once Sheehan starts acting like a politician, say some Republicans and even some Democrats, she will become just another voice in the debate--easy, in other words, to neutralize. But until then, Bush's team cannot fire back hard, as it usually does when it is criticized. Sheehan must be handled, as an adviser to the President put it, "very carefully." And that's what it has been struggling to do. Top officials went out to talk to Sheehan but failed to appease her. The President acknowledged her obliquely last week in response to a question about Iraq, saying he shared her pain. The White House, quantifying his compassion, put out a list of the meetings Bush has held with families. (He has met with the relatives of 272 deceased U.S. soldiers so far.) A senior aide who was present at many of the meetings estimates that a little less than 10% of the relatives tell Bush their loved ones died in vain. "He's had a couple wives who were very upset," says the aide. "They didn't yell at him or hit him or anything like that. But on more than one occasion, they've made very clear their position."
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