If you demonstrate, they will come.

That seems to be a key to getting press attention according to Chris Nolan. The problem is that people get sick of the whining pretty quickly. It's natural to feel compassion for a mother who has lost her son, but when it becomes apparent that she's using that loss as a platform for political purposes, I think most people are disgusted by it. After all, there are lots of families who have lost sons and daughters and don't try to exploit it to make themselves nation celebrities and political activists. The things she says about President Bush doesn't pass the smell test except for those who've already drunk the Koolaid. Most people understand that when a president commands the military to go to war, it puts a burden on him, and that attacking him as uncaring isn't fair. (I don't recall any video of him laughing until he notices the camera and immediately reaches up to wipe away a tear, but I realize that some people don't believe anything he says about sorrowing for the dead and injured soldiers.)

Coincidently, Best of the Web has a killer quote from John Kerry that makes my point, and recalls that last year, "Kerry sent triple amputee Max Cleland, who had been defeated in his 2002 Senate re-election bid, to deliver a letter to President Bush demanding that the president denounce the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Taranto coins a new term, Sheehanoia, and notes that it's "a sign of the desperation, not the strength, of the left in America. Publicity stunts are no substitute for an actual political program." I think that most adults in this country have thought about war and recognized that those who fight in our armed forces are not responsible for decisions beyond their pay grade and that it's better to fight terrorists somewhere else than here.