Where Have All the Aging Hippies Gone?

Peace activist and singer Joan Baez gestures while meeting with families at Cindy Sheehan's camp near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2005.

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- Joan Baez was against the Vietnam War and she showed it _ appearing at marches, once even blocking the entrance of a military induction center.

The folk singer is against the Iraq war, too, and she showed her support Sunday to protesters camping out near President Bush's ranch.

Baez took to the stage for about 500 people on an acre lot offered by a landowner who opposes the war, performing such classic peace anthems as "Song of Peace," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

...For Baez, an anti-war movement was inevitable.

"It was the final tear for the overflow and you can't stop running water," she said. "Cindy's was the final tear."


Gary Qualls, of Temple, Texas, kneels in front of a memorial to his fallen son Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Qualls in Crawford, Texas.

Downtown, more Bush supporters arrived at a pro-Bush camp that had been set up as a reaction to Sheehan's. As of Sunday afternoon, more than 150 people had visited the large tent with "God Bless Our President!" and "God Bless Our Troops" banners and a life-size cardboard cutout of Bush.

"When we saw this, we said, `Thank God you're here'," said Frances Lee, who came from Douglasville, Ga., with neighbor Brenda Bohanan. They planned to hold pro-Bush banners down the street from the protesters.

"We said, `We wanted y'all to know that there are people from all over the United States that care'," Lee said.

The pro-Bush camp is called "Fort Qualls," for Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, killed in Fallujah last fall. His father, Gary Qualls of Temple, said the anti-war demonstrators are being disrespectful to soldiers.

An anti-war protest without Joan Baez is like a day without sunshine.

She must have thrown the protesters in Crawford into a state of ecstacy that they haven't known since the late 1960s.

Gary Qualls presents an interesting challenge to the media. His son was killed in Iraq. Are his opinions less newsworthy than Cindy Sheehan's views?

Will cameras be set up to capture every moment at Fort Qualls?

Will Gary Qualls, grieving father, get round the clock coverage from the liberal news outlets?

Will he become a household name and a national obsession?

NO. Not if the mainstream media has anything to say about it.

While refusing to allow Sheehan and the radical far Leftists to dishonor his son, Qualls is throwing a wrench into their anti-Bush, anti-Iraq machine.

His grief counts, too, even if it does screw up their propaganda plan to derail U.S. efforts in Iraq.

Will the MoveOn-Democracy for America-True Majority axis of extremists bus people in from around the country to support Qualls?

Of course not.

Will Joan Baez pay a visit to offer her condolences to Gary Qualls?

Maybe, but I doubt it.