I sit on the porch, listen to the thunder and watch the rain. Lying next to me, asleep, is my three-year-old daughter. She has been fighting a horrible fever the past few days, and my life has been thrown out of whack by worrying about her, and not getting enough sleep. She seems to be over the worst of it now, and it was probably just one of those childhood illnesses, but still it hurts to see her suffer and still I worry how bad she has had this fever.

Meanwhile, a friend is sitting by the side of her father. He has been waging a fierce battle against cancer and it appears as if the battle is nearly over. Another friend has traveled out of state to visit her aunt who has just gotten out of the hospital.

I think about my blogging, and how people have told me not to bury the lead. Have I done that here? What is the lead anyways? It is something about these moments being pieces of the patchwork quilts of our lives. It is about when you get right down to it, caring for the people around us is what matters. There is the old saying that all politics is personal. It is these moments that form, or at least should form, our political sensibilities.

All politics is personal, which is perhaps why Cindy Sheehan’s political expressions of personal experience are resonating so widely. For the past week, she has been the top item on technorati. She has consistently been on the front page of Google News. I have been reading many blog posts about her vigil and guess it is time for me to throw in my two cents.

David, over at In Search of Utopia has written that he believes “Cindy has passed the point of being a legitimate voice for that challenge [pressuring the President to deal with the tragedy that is Iraq]” and has “simply become a media attraction”. He goes on to say that he has “come to the conclusion that Progressives have hurt their own cause more than helped it by the form of our dissent. Rather than taking an aggressive political and legal course to address our grievances, we create circus side shows that as much alienate those who we would seek to sway, as convince anyone of the justness of our cause.”

As you will guess by my lead in, I disagree with David. You see, I don’t believe that most people have the time, energy, or wherewithal to struggle with foreign policy issues. Yes, my eldest daughter is studying international relations in college and we debate the relationship between Iraq and Vietnam, as well as how best to deal with the current situation, but I believe that is an exception.

I suspect most people want to know that their loved ones are safe and that the people who are supposed to be dealing with policy issues are doing the right thing. We live in a complicated system of checks and balances. The three branches of the government are supposed to keep things in check. The media is supposed to keep things in check. Yet somehow, things have gotten out of balance. Congress and the media haven’t been doing there job, so it is left to Cindy Sheehan, like the boy in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, to point out that there is something missing and she is the perfect person to do it.

The attacks by the right have only strengthened her case. Pointing out that she disagrees with her in-laws about political issues only makes her more real and more authentic to the millions of Americans that disagree with their in-laws. Calling her a liar and a media-whore only makes her appear more persecuted and only makes the right-wing pundits appear as bullies who cannot carry on an intelligent conversation.

Now there are some who would maintain that this is about Cindy getting consoled for the loss of her son, or about getting out of Iraq now. I cannot comment about the grief that Cindy is facing. I have not experienced anything like it and I hope that the great outpouring of support is some consolation, and while she may be calling for getting out of Iraq now, I believe that the real message is something deeper.

As many of you know, I am working as BlogMaster for John DeStefano who is running for Governor of Connecticut. He starts off his stump speech recalling a funeral that he attended soon after he was elected Mayor of New Haven. It was for a little girl killed by a stray bullet from a street fight. He talks about how what parents want to hear isn’t, “I’m sorry.” There is nothing we can say to such grief. Instead, the parents want to hear leaders say that they are working hard to make sure that something like this won’t happen again.

To his credit, President Bush has done much better than the right wing pundits. He has said that he believes we must stay the course, with an implication that he believes by staying the course we will lose less sons and daughters, yet his statements seem somehow incomplete.

What will the U.S. do to make sure that we get the best possible outcome in Iraq? What will the U.S. do to make sure that we are not led into another war by false information and that those responsible for the false information that led us into this war are properly punished?

To me, these are the real questions that Cindy Sheehan is asking and if it takes some sort of media attraction to get these questions asked, then so be it.