US: A conservative backlash has targeted a mother protesting outside George Bush's ranch, writes Michael Fletcher in Crawford, Texas
Cindy Sheehan rode into town 10 days ago, a forlorn mother with a penetrating question for her president: why did my son die in Iraq?
But now the same wave of publicity and political anger that she rode to become a nationally known symbol of the antiwar movement threatens to crash down on Sheehan herself.
Conservative commentators and websites are taking aim at Sheehan with the same ferocity she has aimed at President Bush.
The backlash is becoming a new object lesson in how saturation media coverage and the instinct for personal attack are shaping political debate. Some commentators said the counter-attack on the right had succeeded in part in eroding the public sympathy and deference she had earned as the mother of a fallen soldier, and shown how virtually any subject relating to the Iraq war and Bush's presidency is viewed through a partisan lens.
"Cindy Sheehan has emboldened the progressives who oppose the war and caused the conservative diehards who are behind the war to go into a defensive mode," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, a trade publication for talk radio. "Cindy Sheehan is going to be a target, and they'll probably go through her past to find what they can to discredit her."
Since her son Casey (24) was killed in Iraq last year, Sheehan has travelled the country trying to drum up opposition to the war in Iraq. She has participated in peace conferences, demonstrations and a mock congressional hearing on the now infamous Downing Street memo, notes of a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers that said the Bush administration had decided to go to war and moulded intelligence findings to support that decision.
In that time, Sheehan (48), a soft-spoken woman who says she was radicalised by her son's death, has engaged in her fair share of inflammatory rhetoric.
Bush, Sheehan said, lied to the American people about the war and should be impeached. And she is refusing to pay taxes in hope that the Internal Revenue Service will come after her to collect. "I want them to come after me, so I can put the war on trial."
Still, she called some of the statements attributed to her distortions. Contrary to a letter attributed to her that is circulating widely on the internet, she claims she never said that the US is waging the war in Iraq to protect Israel.
The scrutiny that has accompanied Sheehan's quick rise to prominence has extended to her family. Several of her in-laws have publicly criticized her protest. And news that Sheehan's husband, Patrick, has filed for divorce has been trumpeted by some bloggers as evidence of her extreme views.
Sheehan acknowledges that that some of her views are becoming a distraction. Also, she said, some of the groups that have aided her protest have agendas - including conspiracy theories about September 11th - that she says she does not share.
Consequently, she has asked that her camp site near Bush's ranch be restricted only to organisations of military families, or those that have lost loved ones in the war. "Attention got focused on the messenger and not the message," Sheehan said. "My thing is ending the war in Iraq."
The increased scrutiny of Sheehan is coming as some residents here are growing irritated with the stream of antiwar protesters drawn to her vigil.
A spokeswoman for Sheehan on Tuesday announced plans to move the camp from the drainage ditches next to the winding road about two miles from Bush's 1,600-acre spread to a field on a ranch offered by one of Bush's neighbours. The new camp would be about a mile from Bush's ranch.
All that would be left behind at the original site would be three tents and hundreds of white, wooden crosses bearing the names of troops killed in Iraq.
The move followed complaints by about 60 of Bush's neighbours, who petitioned the county to expand a no-parking zone around the camp. On Monday night a truck dragging chains and a pipe demolished some of the crosses.
Sheehan, from California, has promised to remain encamped throughout Bush's five-week stay here and to return whenever the president does. She also announced plans for a series of nearly 1,000 candlelight vigils throughout the US last night.
"My message is that of a broken-hearted mom sitting down in front of George Bush's ranch wanting to know why my son died," Sheehan said.