None of us knows what it's like to have our beloved child killed in a war.  Cindy Sheehan has said and done some things that I don't agree with, but I think your characterization of her as an "ugly human being" is just as ridiculous as the left's attempts to turn Bush into some evil Hitler that he is not.  From my perspective, Cindy Sheehan is a human being who got a bit caught up in her own notoriety during a period of weakness following what must have been a horrible emotional trauma.  If you detest some of what she has said and done, I can understand that, but you should try to have a little understanding yourself.

Against all odds, she changed the whole direction of the conversation about the war.

The war was mismanaged and the media was playing that up all the time. It was the fact that the war was not going well that the support dropped and it has been going down steadily since its inception. Natural progression that anyone can see. That nutcase had nothing to do it - in fact she only made sure that less people wanted to be associated with the "anti-war" movement. I think she was even less popular than Bush and that's hard to achieve unless you are a shrill moron hanging out with the worst dregs of humanity.