It’s no surprise at all to discover that Mother Sheehan’s Media Circus is being clandestinely funded by all the usual radical left groups—and the Democratic Party: PR Machine Behind Cindy Sheehan? (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Sheehan’s message hasn’t changed since she got here, but the support staff interested in getting that message out to the world has grown considerably. Organizers are set up in a house trailer. Their meetings closed to reporters.

Leading the group is Fenton Communications employee, Michele Mulkey, based in San Francisco. Fenton specializes in public relations for liberal non-profits.

Their bills are being paid for by True Majority, a non-profit set up by Ben Cohen — of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream fame. Ben Cohen, True Majority: “People are willing to listen to her and we want to do as much as we can to make her voice heard.”

Cohen’s group has teamed up with Berkeley based MoveOn.org, an anti-Bush group co-founded by Joan Blades. Earlier this month, MoveOn helped organize anti-war vigils in support of Cindy Sheehan.

Current Democratic National Party Chair Howard Dean’s organization Democracy for America is also involved, as is the more radical anti-war group Code Pink organized by San Francisco’s Medea Benjamin.

Money donated through these groups and others is helping to pay for Gold Star families whose children have been killed in Iraq to attend anti-Bush protests.

This week Simi Valley California Gold Star wife Melanie House flew to Idaho for a protest and then flew to Crawford.

ABC7’s Mark Matthews: “Can you tell us if you’re getting help in airfare to come down here?”

Melanie House: “What difference does that make?”

There is real reluctance to talk about who’s paying, and the P.R. machine that’s promoting Cindy Sheehan, but not everyone here is completely comfortable with it.

Gold Star mother Karen Meredith came here from Mountain View. Her son Ken Ballard died last year.

Karen Meredith, Gold Star mother: “Sometimes things don’t feel quite right to me. They don’t feel wrong, but maybe that’s how they do it in the marketing business.”

ABC7’s Mark Matthews: “You feel you’re part of a marketing business?”

Karen Meredith: “Possibly. Yeah I think so.”