Mother of Fallen Soldier Becomes Victim of Smear Campaign

There's an interesting thing happening in Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan is camped out on a road near the President's ranch. She wants to talk to Mr. Bush. She's upset because her child was killed in the Iraq war.

Her campout has generated a lot of attention. The press core with the president doesn't have much else to do. It's not like the president is having a bunch of question and answer sessions. So there's this woman and she has this incredible loss in her life, and she blames the president and wants him to bring the troops home right away.

This leads to stories in the New York Times, CNN, the Chicago Tribune, and many more. In fact, there's so much press covering Cindy Sheehan that the president sends two high level advisors -- Joe Hagin and Stephen Hadley -- to meet with Ms. Sheehan.

The situation is incredibly tense. The administration wants to be polite to a mother who has lost her son in Iraq. But what I'm waiting for is the backlash. At what point will the smear campaign launch against Cindy Sheehan the way it did against Joe Wilson.

And I guess that point is right now. They didn't even have the decency to let me finish my blog post. You can always count on Matt Drudge to trot out the White House talking points.

- Stephen Elliott

update - I just read that Eric Boehlert actually beat me to this post. But still, it's interesting that this kind of reaction from the administration could be predicted. It was so obvious that this poor woman was going to be swift-boated. It's just sad.