Inside the Beltway

THE WINDS OF CINDY

Is it Crawford-by-the-Sea? Sounds like it. Peace activist Cindy Sheehan arrives in Obama Vacationland on Tuesday and will remain for the duration.

“My purpose for going to Martha’s Vineyard is to bring awareness to the country, the international community, the media and President Obama that there are still people in this nation who care about the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and our soldiers who are still dying in wars that have no ‘noble cause.’ And while the regimes may have changed in D.C., the ruinous foreign policies remain the same,” Ms. Sheehan tells Inside the Beltway.

“Our demand from the peace movement has always been ‘troops home now,’ and I am going to reassert the moral demands that we insisted upon from the Bush administration to an Obama administration,” she adds.

Ms. Sheehan — who lost her son, U.S. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan in Iraq in 2004 — spent considerable time camped near President George W. Bush’s ranch in Texas to protest the war. She also called for his impeachment, starved herself, was arrested, protested alongside Susan Sarandon and ran for public office.

The politics appear fluid, however. More than two years ago, Ms. Sheehan made a public announcement that she was leaving the Democratic Party, telling Congress, “It used to be George Bush’s war. You could have ended it honorably. Now it is yours, and you all will descend into calumnious history with BushCo.”

ACT TWO

We can only speculate if the “peace mom” has changed her act for the new administration. Will anyone listen?

“She may get some passing notice as one of the ‘goings-on’ on the island during the Obama stay, but I very much doubt she will earn anywhere near the attention she got when she could be used to amplify an anti-Bush message — even though there’s certainly a news angle to a left-wing antiwar protester holding a vigil against a liberal president,” the Media Research Center’s Brent Baker tells Beltway.

ABC News anchor Charles Gibson recently told Chicago radio station WLS “enough already” when he heard Ms. Sheehan was heading for Martha’s Vineyard.

BELTWAY BOOK CLUB

And now that everyone has heard at least 140,000 times what President Obama plans to read on his vacation, Beltway respectfully asks readers to send in their own suggestions for his reading list. Thanks. And, uh, behave. (You know what we mean …).

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

The national discourse on race continues, vacation time or not, meanwhile.

White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton was asked during the daily briefing Monday if Mr. Obama agrees — as New York Gov. David A. Paterson recently suggested —”that the criticism of African-American politicians is often racially based.” Massachusetts Gov.Deval Patrick also warned that the president “would be the next victim of this kind of bias in the media.”

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