Today, I had the chance to take part in a conference call with Cindy Sheehan that had been organized by Joe Trippi, Bob Fertik, and Jodie Evans. A podcast of the call should be available soon.

Cindy’s strength and resolve amazed us all. She said that she has been “overwhelmed” by the support of the progressive blogosphere. I urge all progressive bloggers to continue the blogswarm, and to visit Meet With Cindy to learn more about her quest to speak to President Bush about the War in Iraq. Every message that is posted about her helps get the word out.

As Cindy said during the call, she never thought that one person could make a difference, but she now knows that “one person with millions behind her can.”

Cindy said that when she first camped out in front of Bush’s ranch, secret service agents told her repeatedly that she was likely to get run over by a car in the middle of the night if she didn’t move. During the Q&A portion of the call, someone asked her whether she had felt threatened by those words; Cindy said that she had the impression that they were trying to intimidate her, but that “they don’t know who they’re dealing with here.”

Cindy said, however, that the Crawford Town Sheriff had been very supportive of her, and had offered her the use of the town high school’s stadium for a rally if she so desired.

She had harsh words for Bill O’Reilly, who had asked her to come on his show (presumably so that he could continue to spew lies about her). Sheehan called O’Reilly’s show an “obscenity to the truth and to humanity,” and reminded us that the majority of the nation agrees with her view of the war.

In a response to a question from Peter Daou about the dearth of television coverage of her protest, Cindy spoke about the fact that the Natalee Holloway story continues to be a lead story on CNN and MSNBC. She said that if these networks were truly reporting the news objectively, they would be reporting about her protest. And she said that while she sympathizes with the family of Natalee Holloway, that story is a tragedy for one family, while this one is a tragedy for thousands of American families.

In response to a question about yesterday’s editorial in the New York Times, Cindy said that it was imperative that the Iraq War be put back on the front pages of American newspapers. She argued that “it belongs there every day, whether a grieving mother is sitting outside of a ranch in Crawford or not. We are a nation at war.”

She closed with the reassurance that her protest would continue to be an act of peaceful dissent. Her message to President Bush was that “if you want me gone, you’ll have to carry me out of here.”

Though I’m sure that a simple face-to-face meeting would do the trick as well.

For more info on Cindy Sheehan’s protest in Crawford, check out her Daily Kos blog. And be sure to sign the petition on Meet With Cindy.

Finally, Will Bunch has an excellent post dealing with the Matt Drudge’s attempted swift-boating of Cindy Sheehan.

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