Bush Motorcade Ignores Protesters

President Passes Demonstrators On Way To Political Fundraiser

(CBS/AP) 
While Sheehan has been joined by dozens of other anti-war protesters,
and her cause has been taken up by high-profile liberal groups
like MoveOn.org, her efforts are drawing criticism as well. In an e-mail to the Drudge Report, members of her husband's family said, "She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son's good name and reputation."

Sheehan says she's always been at odds politically with her Republican in-laws.

"When they voted for the man who my husband and I consider killed our son, that was the thing that was the last straw," Sheehan said.

Although authorities have not arrested anyone or forced the protesters to move, more residents have complained about the group parking on the edge of private property or blocking an intersecting road, according to the McLennan County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies went to the site Thursday with county health inspectors to see if conditions were sanitary but said they found no problems. Protesters said they have used restrooms at the Crawford Peace House several miles away but that portable toilets will be brought to the camp.

Austin attorney James C. Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, went to the site Thursday to make sure the group's rights were not being violated. He said he may file a federal lawsuit seeking to allow the protesters closer to Bush's ranch.

On Internet chat rooms and blogs, some organizations and soldiers' relatives are criticizing the protest, saying participants are trying to promote a left-wing agenda and lower troop morale. They say Sheehan does not represent their views on the war with Iraq.

"You have hundreds of people protesting there; you have thousands upon thousands who are not," Becky Davis of Orrington, Maine, who has three sons in the military, told The Associated Press. "A lot of military families I've talked to think it's almost sickening to watch."

Davis says she doesn't know how she would react if one of her sons died in Iraq. But she said she would still support the war because she believes Saddam Hussein was an inhumane dictator who posed a direct threat to the U.S.

"My sons made me promise not to go off the deep end and protest if they got killed ... (because) they were doing what they wanted to do," Davis said. "They volunteered, and they very much believe in their mission."

Protesters say they support the troops.

"We can be proud of our soldiers and ashamed of our government at the same time," said Tammara Rosenleaf, whose husband is stationed at Fort Hood and is to be deployed to Iraq this fall.

Nearly 40 Democratic members of Congress have asked Mr. Bush to talk to her. On Wednesday, a coalition of anti-war groups in Washington also called on the president to speak with Sheehan, who they say has helped to unify the peace movement.

"Cindy Sheehan has become the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, leader of the Hip Hop Caucus, an activist group. "She's tired, fed up and she's not going to take it anymore, and so now we stand with her."