Cindy Sheehan, martyr to the anti-war movement

Cindy Sheehan, a Gold Star Mother who lost a son fighting in Iraq and who has taken up residence in a small tent a few miles outside President Bush's vacation home in Texas.

Ms. Sheehan has vowed to camp out on the spot until Mr. Bush agrees to meet with her, even if it means spending all of August under a broiling sun by the dusty road. Early on Sunday afternoon, 25 hours after she was turned back as she approached Mr. Bush's ranch, Prairie Chapel, Ms. Sheehan stood red-faced from the heat at the makeshift campsite that she says will be her home until the president relents or leaves to go back to Washington.

Naturally, the President has sent low-level subordinates out to where Ms Sheehan is to try and shoo her away and to allow the President his vacation time undisturbed by having to deal with the war that he unleashed. Ms Sheehan has refused to leave.
The NY Times article goes on to relate how the President prefers private meetings with families who have lost loved ones in Iraq, obviously because private meetings can be presented as being something they are not and, not surprisingly, Ms Sheehan's account is quite different from those of most people, she describes meeting a president who:.

was an arrogant man with eyes lacking the slightest bit of compassion, a President totally "detached from humanity" and a man who didn't even bother to remember her son's name when they were first introduced.

Ms Sheehan continues :

Instead of a kind gesture or a warm handshake, Sheehan said she immediately got a taste of Bush arrogance when he entered the room and "in a condescending tone and with a disgusting loud Texas accent," said: "Who we'all honorin' here today?"

The Free Republic posts a piece heavy on administration statements of understanding:

She said Hagin told her, "I want to assure you that he (Bush) really does care."
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White House spokesman Trent Duffy said response that Bush also wants the troops to return home safely.

"Many of the hundreds of families the president has met with know their loved one died for a noble cause and that the best way to honor their sacrifice is to complete the mission," Duffy said.

"It is a message the president has heard time and again from those he has met with and comforted. Like all Americans, he wants the troops home as soon as possible."

And of course, in the comments section, there were other opinions:

What a disgrace. And to think her son died to protect her right to badmouth the President.
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I can understand the mother's grief. But she dishonors her son's sacrifice.
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Grief excuses a great deal, but not this. She's being used by America's enemies, God help her.
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"I can't even imagine this happening in 1941-1945 when we lost 400,000 men"

Mothers had dignity back then.

Most still do today, but all of them did back then.
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this women is sick...no two ways about it....she was a speaker at the Conyers hearing on the Downing Street Memo with Joe Wilson and claimed that her son's demise was "a premeditated death"....
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Yep, most of these so-called "peace protestors" are too dim-witted to realize that they are only making future conflict more likely by encouraging our adversaries. The leaders of these movements know this, but they aren't really interested in peace; for them its just a recruitment tool (along with racism, the environment, social justice, etc.) to hook the useful idiots.
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She is a willing participant in the campaign of hate that the Left has pursued against President Bush since his victory in 2000

Of course, there were genuinely intelligent and compassionate statements like the following:

She's a grieving mom. I think we ought to leave her alone. Be angry at the people using her. I hope GB does schedule a private interview with her.

But most of them were like this:

She is not angry about her sons death, she is angry because she is not running the world.

Narcissistic at the least, probably egomaniacle. Her "opinion" is one of self interest and will never be swayed.

Is Bush himself willing to wait until Cindy Sheehan dies of thirst out in the hot Texas sun? I'll let Mark Crispin Miller have the final word:

[Bush] has no trouble speaking off the cuff when he's speaking punitively, when he's talking about violence, when he's talking about revenge. When he struts and thumps his chest, his syntax and grammar are fine. It's only when he leaps into the wild blue yonder of compassion, or idealism, or altruism, that he makes these hilarious mistakes.
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"I know how hard it is to put food on your family," Bush is quoted as saying. That wasn't because he's so stupid that he doesn't know how to say, "Put food on your family's table" — it's because he doesn't care about people who can't put food on the table.
So, when Bush is envisioning "a foreign-handed foreign policy," or observes on some point that "it's not the way that America is all about" it's because he can't keep his focus on things that mean nothing to him.