Sheehan in Washington

From Confederate Yankee - Cindy Sheehan's big protest march on the White House included a whopping 29 people. He rightfully calls it The Million Yawn March.


For a really severely cropped picture, there is this ABC shot.

UPDATE: Byron York on the "Peace Train" confirms there were around 30 protesters.

About that time, a cameraman shooting the scene noticed something. "I've seen a lot of these people before," he said. Pointing to a woman a few feet away, he said, "That one was at the World Bank thing. They're professional protesters."

And indeed, that one — Fithian — had been at the protests in Washington a few years earlier. And so had some of the people working with Fithian. And Code Pink's Medea Benjamin, exchanging a warm hug with Fithian on the Capitol lawn, had been at hundreds, if not thousands, of protests. There were some real protest veterans in the group.

Indeed, the photographer's observation pointed to something telling about the day. On close examination, the Cindy Sheehan phenomenon appears not to be a mass movement of any sort but rather to consist of a small group of relatives of U.S. servicemen and women — there were perhaps 30 in all with Sheehan on Wednesday — accompanied and guided by a group of full-time organizers like Fithian, Benjamin, and the people from Mintwood Media Collective.

About what we expected.