Sheehan's Story

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Media Matters for America, the liberal watchdog group, says conservative media are spreading "a lie" about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who has become a vocal anti-war protester. Beginning with the Drudge Report and continuing with pundits including Michelle Malkin and Bill O'Reilly, the right-wing echo chamber has been claiming that Sheehan "dramatically changed her account" of a meeting she had with Bush in June 2004. In fact, their claim is based on selective omissions and quotations out of context from the original report about their meeting that appeared in Sheehan's hometown paper. Specifically, Drudge left out the parts from the original story in which the Sheehans criticized Bush and the war. "We don't think there has been a dramatic turnaround," states the hometown paper in its response to Drudge's charges. "Clearly, Cindy Sheehan's outrage was festering even then. ... In ensuing months, she has grown more focused, more determined, more aggressive. ... We invite readers to revisit the story - in context - on our Web site and decide for themselves."