A failed swiftboating.

Frank Rich writes that attempts by the Bushies to "Swift Boat" Cindy Sheehan—a tactic that worked well on everyone from John Kerry, Max Cleland, and Richard Clarke to "the grunt who publicly challenged Donald Rumsfeld about inadequately armored vehicles last December"—have failed miserably. An excerpt:

The backdrops against which Ms. Sheehan stands - both that of Mr. Bush's what-me-worry vacation and that of Iraq itself - are perfectly synergistic with her message of unequal sacrifice and fruitless carnage. Her point would endure even if the messenger were shot by a gun-waving Crawford hothead or she never returned to Texas from her ailing mother's bedside or the president folded the media circus by actually meeting with her.

The public knows that what matters this time is Casey Sheehan's story, not the mother who symbolizes it. Cindy Sheehan's bashers, you'll notice, almost never tell her son's story. They are afraid to go there because this young man's life and death encapsulate not just the noble intentions of those who went to fight this war but also the hubris, incompetence and recklessness of those who gave the marching orders.

Like Perry Jeffries letter below, Sheehan isn't protesting something abstract, she's railing against the unjustified death of real people, with names.

Read The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan.