That's very fair David, and I'm glad you wrote her. Cindy often seemed so consumed by her grief that it overpowered other aspects of her public persona. The rage and zeal that manifested from her grief undoubtedly compromised her ability to be an effective anti-war leader over the long haul. It certainly made her a target for satire and ridicule from the right.

I guess what struck me as I read her farewell blog was the sense of her reestablishing her humanity: no longer the strident, uncompromising, caricature created by FOX News, she again became a grieving, outraged mother, beaten and hurting and needing to fall back. I have a daughter, probably about the same age as Sheehan's son. I can't even imagine how I would cope, or what I would do, if she were killed in this war, so it's hard for me to second guess Sheehan's motivations and actions. I hope that I would try and make something meaningful out of a life-changing loss.

I recently saw the play "My Name is Rachel Corrie", based on the journals and emails of the young Washington State woman who was run over and killed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to prevent the demolition of a friend's home in Gaza. Like Sheehan, Corrie has been ridiculed and vilified by those who disagree with her stance and actions. Protesters met me at the door to the theater when I went to see the play. A couple of groups took out ads in the play's program condemning Corrie as naive and a tool of terrorist organizations.

Both of these women are very human, and therefore prone to human foibles: inconsistency, rhetoric, passion. The powers that be that don't want their messages heard work very hard to dehumanize them: to paint them as ludicrous, strident harpies. It's an old tactic. Cindy Sheehan's ultimate triumph may very well be her farewell letter: a very sad and heartfelt summation of her decision to retreat. In writing this she has crystalized the pain and some of the human cost of this time in US history, and has shed the image that was bestowed upon her by the media and that she undoubtedly and inadvertently contributed to.