When a local Texan shows his disapproval of Ms Sheehan's demonstration on the doorsteps of the Bush estate by driving his pickup through the site and knocking down memorial crosses, it's a sign that her vigil is beginning to grab some real traction in the media, and therefore in the public consciousness. Only a real crazy could applaud such an act; those with the slightest vestige of decency are appalled and ashamed. Law enforcement officials, state and federal, haven't exactly shown themselves anxious to protect the lives and property of the demonstrators, either.

Now that one of Bush's neighbors has given the demonstrators the use of his private property so that they don't have to stand in ditches to which they have thusfar been relegated by the president's men and the local gendarmes, at least they will not be in danger of being driven back to Crawford, seven miles away. The neighbor, a veteran, opposes the Iraq war.

In light of the fact that he is the single most powerful person in the world, it is hard to imagine that Bush refuses to grant an audience to Ms. Sheehan. Maybe he has worn that smirk so long that it has become permanent and smirking at a bereaved mother would be politically damaging. Riding his bicycle, however, while she stands outside demanding a meeting does not present a very flattering picture of Bush the man. Every day she stands there in the August heat and Bush hides from her behind the chain-link fence reveals to the nation and the world a little more about the character of our chief executive.

The longer Ms. Sheehan stands before the imperial gates, Bush looks sorrier and sorrier. I predict that ultimately the sheriff and the Secret Service will concoct a pretext to drive her and her supporters away using far more force than necessary. The old ones of us who have lived in the Deep South have burned into our memories a similar event: the attack on the civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama by Alabama state troupers as they attempted to cross the Pettus Bridge. That unprovoked attack and the murder of Mrs. Luizzo, along with the murder of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney in Neshoba County, Mississippi, were the tipping points for the civil rights movement. It outraged the nation and led directly to the passages of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act.

The stage is already set. A majority of the nation is disenchanted with the Iraq war, but not yet outraged, probably because the national media have been particularly disingenuous in their reporting and painting the situation as far better than the disaster it has become. If Ms. Sheehan is mistreated (and many already believe that she has been mistreated by being forced to stand in a ditch) that disenchantment could quickly turn to anger