Without getting into all the sub-arguments about Cindy 
    Sheehan, I think she's a great example of the opportunism 
    of partisanship. There's simply no way that establishment 
    liberals would take the same tone if Bill Clinton were 
    president under remotely similar circumstances. It is 
    flatly inconceivable. Sure some of the Huffington Post 
    types might make similar bleatings, but Juan Williams? No 
    way. A lot of smart (and a lot of dumb) people who are 
    striking a self-righteous pose when it comes to Sheehan, 
    would undoubtedly be singing a different tune if a 
    mother, adopted by ideological enemies of the president, 
    were camping out outside of his vacation home (in 
    Martha's Vineyard or the like) under similar 
    circumstances. Her previously friendly statements about 
    the president would be used to damn her and that would be 
    the end of it. The nightly news wouldn't make her a hero 
    and the lefty bloggers would write her off as a "Clinton 
    hater," a Freeper, a Buchananite or some other example of 
    the "paranoid style" in American politics. 

    Meanwhile, I am sure it's true that a lot of folks on the 
    right would be taking up a "rightwing" Cindy Sheehan's 
    cause. But the key difference is that the Washington 
    Post, New York Times and nightly news shows wouldn't be 
    volunteering as press agents. 

    Even giving Sheehan every benefit of the doubt, is it so 
    impossible to understand that caving-in to publicity 
    stunts of this sort is something presidents, Republican 
    and Democrat, are naturally reluctant to do?