One of the big headlines today that I happened to see as I was browsing around the internet had to do with now-famous protesting mom Cindy Sheehan who has become well-known across the United States and the world for her adamant outrcry against the United States involvement in the war in Iraq as a result of her son's death serving in the military in our armed forces. Sheehan's name has often been in the news over the past several years owing to her protests, as well as the numerous times that she has been arrested as a result of her protests. I believe that I even remember an article about her stated that she had recently purchased a home in Crawford, Texas, which many of you might realize is not far from the Texas home of George W. Bush. Sheehan appeared to be a neverending force to be reckoned with regarding the war in Iraq. She has fought so diligently against the war that many people have begun to equate her with the entire anti-war movement. All that might change after today, when Cindy Sheehan announced that she would giving up the anti-war protest movement due to its various negative impacts the war has had on her life, on top of the death of her son of course. She cited that her efforts fighting against the war have, on top of the emotional devastation that she felt when her son died, also caused her mental and financial pains. She stated that it had caused her marriage to end in ruin and had left her in somewhat dire financial straits. The most powerful quote included in all the of the various renditions of the article that I happened to say said that her son had died for nothing. She went on to express her disappointed and disgust over the fact that even with a Democratic controlled House of Representatives and Senate, as well as anti-war Republicans in both houses, the government has failed to take any strides towards ending the war and brining our soliders back home safely. As we all know, there is a news headline nearly every day tallying the number of military and civilian lives being lost by various means each day as the war in Iraq rages on. Although I wholeheartedly agree with Sheehan's feelings about the need to end the war, I can not support the manner in which she went about accomplishing her goal. As a result of what she did, she made little progress besides getting herself arrested and getting her name in the news. Nothing has come of what she did besides the added heartache that she has felt on the levels that I have just mentioned above. With no one in the government able to challenge Bush and his policies, the situation will continue to stall out in a veritable stalemate until the next president of the United States steps up to bat. There is really much study of our government's system of checks and balances that needs to be done in response to this whole situation. How many vetoes does the president actually have the ability to issue? It seems that no matter what legislation that the house and senate attempt to pass, they cannot afterwards overcome the power of the veto. It appears to just be a dead that the government continues to travel down which gets nowhere and causes them only to circle back and try again, but not yet with any success. The Republican representatives seem all too worried to take a stand against the president, likely fearing what their non-alignment will do to harm the party, and therefore themselves, in future elections and negotiations. It has really become a horrible situation that we have little hope of recovering from, at least not for the next year and a half so. Once very involved in American politics myself, I have started to lose hope in the system and the situation. I hope that the Americans who voted for and elected Bush (and those who didn't vote that would have voted otherwise) see the error of their ways. This is not to say that Kerry would have assuredly done any better, but at least maybe we could look back and hope that we would no longer be in the situation we are now...or at least be in as bad of a situation as we are now. So sad...