Can I borrow your shotgun?

I've had some ranging opinions on Ms. Sheehan's little tiff with our government and its justifications for the Iraq war. While I agree with the concept that the justifications for going to war were wrong, but that doesn't change anything over the last couple years. Like it or not, we're in this and the only way to honor the memory of the dead is to see this to the end (whatever it shall be).

But Ms. Sheehan just crossed the line today. She got to meet with Senator McCain (who I hope will run for President in 2008). She called him a warmonger. McCain has been against the reasons for the war, spoken out against any maltreatment of detainees. But if Ms. Sheehan remembered that he spent years as a Vietnam POW, she would have shut her mouth. Courtsey of the Associated Press:

Sheehan, McCain meet, still at odds on Iraq war
Associated Press
Sept. 27, 2005 04:22 PM

WASHINGTON - A 20-minute meeting Tuesday afternoon left peace activist Cindy Sheehan and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., still at odds over the Iraq war.

"He is a warmonger, and I'm not," said Sheehan, a Californian whose son's death in Iraq prompted her to hold a 26-day vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch this summer. "I believe this war is not keeping America safer."

"She's entitled to her opinion," said McCain, who also disapproves of Sheehan's anti-war campaign. "We just have fundamental disagreements."

Sheehan's conference with McCain was one of several scheduled this week as part of her campaign to get members of Congress to explain the reasons for the Iraq war.

Since her 24-year-old son, Casey, was killed last year in an ambush in Sadr City, Iraq, Sheehan has attracted worldwide attention. Her protest in Texas made her the face of the anti-war movement. Monday, she was arrested during a rally in front of the White House.

Sheehan said she is meeting with elected officials because she wants answers to specific questions, among them, "How many other people's children are you willing to risk for this?" and what are elected officials doing to end the war.

Sheehan also was scheduled to meet with Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl last week, but she was unable to attend.

Tuesday, she thanked McCain for meeting with her, but she came away disappointed in his answers.

"He tried to tell us what George Bush would have said," she said. "I don't believe he believes what he was telling me."

Although he has criticized the handling of the Iraq war, McCain, who was held prisoner during the Vietnam War, has defended the president's call to stop terrorism abroad before it reaches U.S. shores.

McCain said he had agreed to meet with Sheehan because he believed she was coming with a group of Arizona constituents.

But on Tuesday, the only Arizonan in her small group was her congressional liaison, who grew up in Sedona but moved away when he went to college.

"It was a misrepresentation," McCain said afterward. Asked if he would have met with her if he had known she was not with constituents, he said: "I may not have."

He described the meeting in his Senate office as "basically a rehash of my views, which I've articulated many times, and her views, which she has articulated many times."

McCain and Sheehan met once last June, shortly after Casey's funeral.

On Tuesday, Sheehan said she remembers McCain then saying Casey's death was "like his buddies in Vietnam" and that he was afraid their death was "for nothing."

McCain said he doesn't remember saying that. "That's ludicrous, I've never said anything like that," he said. "I not only have not encouraged Ms. Sheehan, I have expressed my strong disagreement with her views on the war."

If I was armed, I'd be seriously tempted to shut Ms. Sheehan up. Since I'm do not own a firearm, can I borrow yours?