Cindy Sheehan lost her son to George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Specialist Casey A. Sheehan an Army Humvee mechanic, was killed April 24, 2004 in Sadr City.

Mrs. Sheehan has made regular public anti-war appearances. She recently became newly and additionally disturbed by a speech Bush gave in Grapevine, Texas in which he thusly characterized the murders of US service people accomplished at his orders; “Our men and women who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and in this war on terror have died in a noble cause, in a selfless cause.”

Apparently not deeming the Iraq war a noble cause, Mrs. Sheehan led a protest march this past Saturday on Bush’s ranch near Crawford, Texas. Among the other marchers were others whose children had been murdered in the war. The group was stopped by the local police at a distance of five miles from the ranch. Mrs. Sheehan vowed to remain as close as possible until Bush agreed to see her. She told reporters: “I want to ask George Bush: Why did my son die?”

The White House sent two officials to meet with Mrs. Sheehan, a national security advisor and a deputy White House chief of staff, neither of whom is responsible for the decision to engage in Iraq.

What if not sheerest cowardice made George W. Bush refuse to meet with Mrs. Sheehan? He evaded military service in Vietnam, and now having sent young people to their unnecessary murders in Iraq, he doesn’t even have the guts to face the parents of the young people whose murders are incontrovertibly his fault. He is a disgrace, and to the extent that we don’t agitate for his impeachment and jailing, we share in that disgrace.