Cindy Sheehan Has No Agenda

On The Huffington Post, which had 20 posts on the front page this morning, each of which each dealt with Cindy Sheehan, there is this article by Thomas de Zengotita which suggests that President Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan on the condition that she not reveal anything that that occurs in the meeting.

This is not a good strategy. If he chooses to meet with her, he should do so unconditionally. There would be nothing to prevent her from going public with the conversation and she probably would. For him to require such an agreement would reflect negatively on him. If he chooses to meet with her, he should do so unconditionally.

I think whether he meets with her or not will have little to do with the outcome of this. She will continue some form of protest in either case. In one case, she is armed with the fact that he will not meet with her. In the other case she is armed with her account of what he said.

The problem is that there is nothing that the President can do to satisfy Cindy Sheehan. He can not reverse her loss. If she wants condolences a meeting will not help because she has already met with him and she views him as cold and uncaring. She does not seem to want the meeting to bring about a policy change. She shows this by not using the time she gets with the media to articulate an alternative plan. Immediate withdrawal is not a plan without some comment on why she thinks that this will not create a larger mess for people like her son to clean up. I have not heard a compelling description from her of what the President could do to satisfy her.

If there is nothing that the President can do to satisfy her, it seems unlikely that she intends to engage in a productive conversation. It does seem, based on her writings, that she intends to harm him without regard for any action he might take. Given that I do not understand why any of the observers of this mess would believe that the President would meet with her.

I would not be surprised if he decides to meet with her, but he should do so without attempting to place unenforceable conditions on her. I imagine that she would be surprised if he decides to meet with her. She should be surprised given that she is sending strong signals that nothing good can come of a meeting between them. If she wants a meeting she needs to signal a potentially productive agenda.

Here are two other good discussions of this:

• Cindy Sheehan is Lost on The Strata-Sphere
• How Hard Should Hawks Be on Cindy Sheehan? on Rightwing Nuthouse