Was Cindy Sheehan Really "Unsuccessful"?

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the Times has shown up in these pages before. This time Stolberg takes on the one-person peace movement that is Cindy Sheehan, as she returns to Crawford in time to get within shouting distance of the president during his vacation, and to mark the first anniversary of the antiwar protests she started. Whether you agreed or disagreed with her, it's indisputable that Sheehan electrified the country during her peace vigil last year, sparking hours of prime-time news coverage, hundreds of inches of written copy, and a best selling book. Somewhat odd, then, to see the specter of "unsuccessful" placed next to Sheehan's name no fewer than three times in the Times' story on her.

• "A Year After March Against Iraq War, Another Try" (headline)
• "Cindy Sheehan, second from right, a war protester whose son died in Iraq, marched with supporters Sunday near the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., a year after she demanded, unsuccessfully, to meet the president" (photo caption).
• "It was the first anniversary of her much-publicized march down a winding country road to the Bush ranch where she demanded, unsuccessfully, to meet the president" (second paragraph).

Never mind the forty-five minutes Sheehan spent with the national security advisor and the White House deputy chief of staff last year, or the president's two public mentions of her, or the sixteen members of Congress who petitioned the president to meet with her, or that she single-handedly made it acceptable for military families to come out against the Iraq war. It's so much simpler to say that she was "unsuccessful."