The wrenching pain I feel when I hear right-wing commentators try to say nasty things about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier who died in Iraq in 2004, is almost overwhelming. Cindy Sheehan is sitting on the lawn of President George Bush's vacation home, waiting for him to come talk to her about the cause for which her son gave his life, as a soldier in Iraq.

I haven't written about it in my syndicated newspaper column, because many editors don't like me to venture into the political arena.

But in the end, all politics comes down to human trust; and Cindy Sheehan is not all that different from a growing number of Americans whose trust is faltering.

Bill O'Reilly has hinted that this mother's need to talk to President Bush, to question the reasons for her son's death, a year after the fact -- because she apparently sees very little progress in the cause for which she believed he gave his life -- borders on treason.

But in fact, condemning the right to question our leaders is a far more queasy proposition. Cindy Sheehan is not trying to harm the president or to suggest his resignation. She knows how her son died. She has thought it over and wants to know why.

Cindy Sheehan may have changed her mind since she first met with President Bush, in the weeks following first shock of her son's death, when she still believed that he died for a noble cause.

But the mind has a way of defending us against troubling questions just folllowing a tragedy.

We want to see meaning in the greatest loss of our lives. It takes time to mourn; I know, I've had to mourn a husband. After mourning, it's only natural to begin to ask, was this death necessary? Was it my responsibility to have done more to prevent it? Could I change the fat of other people who might face what I faced?

A year after my husband died of colon cancer, I began to spread the word, to speak to as many people as I could, about preventing and detecting this disease. I learned more. I came out of the mists of grief to ask questions.

Perhaps Cindy Sheehan isn't saying the same things she said to or about President Bush when she first met him, as the mother of a fallen warrior. Perhaps she doesn't think the same things. She's had time to reflect, to change her position. That is her right.

It's her right to about the cause for which she gave her world.

She deserves an answer.

When I was a girl, soliders went to Vietnam because they believed it was their duty; and some came home broken and disillusioned. Some came home proud and affirmed. Others, as years passed, grew belief that this war was wrong. It took years of reflection.

People learn more, and as they learn, they wonder if they should have accepted the original story they were asked to believe.

It happens in marriage. It happens in education. It happens in the workplace. It happens in politics.

You don't have to be a member of the radical left to see the poignancy in Cindy Sheehan's predicament. And from an administration whose members have often used emotion -- specifically fear -- to inspire action or loyalty, it's just hypocritical to suggest that she's exploiting her loss to make a political point.

And if she is?

President Bush is a father. He knows that Casey Sheehan was more than a soldier, just as his own children are more than college students.

He was the hope of his family's heart, as all children are.

His own heart should go out to Cindy Sheehan. He should sit with her and explain clearly why her son and other young men and women, and not-so-young men and women, are still in harm's way in Iraq -- not ignore her, let vague rumblings about arresting her for disturbing the peace make the rounds.

He owes her that much. He owes not only the parents and spouses of soliders that much, but all of us.

I've heard various commentators say that for the president to meet with an individual and confront her grief with a rationale for the continuing conflict might create a precedent. More and more parents whose children have been wounded horribly or who have died in Iraq might ask more and more questions.

Why would that be wrong? An American president is the leader of a republic, a society founded on the inalienable right to question authority peacefully. George Bush accepted that responsibility. He knows and sees that fewer Americans feel he's on the right track. And he won't get the trust he needs to lead for three more years by ignoring the mother who sits on the lawn, asking for assurances.

Cindy Sheehan isn't a living embodiment of all mothers, or even of all mothers of soldiers. She isn't a living embodiment of the huge number of Americans whose bumper stickers assure others that they support the troops from afar.

But she is a living embodiment of an American ideal, expressed by the ancient words, "We, the people."

A mother sits on the lawn of the president's vacation home. In another country, she might be "disappeared." She might be dragged away.

But this isn't that kind of country. Our constitution guarantees us the right to do exactly those uncomfortable, embarrassing things that Cindy Sheehan is doing now.

What do you say about a country like that?

God bless America, I guess.

Jackie