Take a second look at Sheehan

CATHY YOUNG'S column on Monday was spot on. Cindy Sheehan as the grieving mother was someone we could all feel sorry for. Cindy Sheehan as the free speech advocate and confrontationalist was someone we all could admire. But now, Cindy Sheehan has shown herself to be far more than either of those things. She is now proving herself to be a woman who revels in her free speech but rails at the free speech voiced by those who don't agree with her.

Although her diatribes have ventured into matters way beyond the Iraq war, and although she left her first meeting with the president with nothing but positives to say, anyone, be they members of the media or the public at large, is deemed an evil, right-wing shill if they question anything she says.

The longer this goes on and the more she publicly says, the more she is convincing some of us that she is as closed-minded, extreme, and hypocritical as the administration she holds in such contempt. With the agenda she is currently driving, the media need to stop worrying about looking unsympathetic toward a mother who lost a son in the war and start looking at who this woman really is and what it is she really wants.

ANN BURNS
Bridgewater