Thousands gathered to support Sheehan, or did they?

Salon editorial fellow Aaron Kinney checks in with a report on last night's vigils in support of Cindy Sheehan.

Protesters against the Iraq war held 1,625 candlelight vigils across the United States last night in honor of Sheehan and the soldiers who have died in Iraq, according to organizer MoveOn.org.

It was a stirring and peaceful demonstration. But if you're Rush Limbaugh, you probably didn't think it was real. For reasons that aren't readily apparent, Limbaugh on Monday compared Cindy Sheehan to Bill Burkett, the retired Texas Air National Guard officer who provided "60 Minutes" with allegedly phony documents regarding President Bush's service in the unit. Said Limbaugh: "Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real, including the mainstream media's glomming onto it. It's not real."

It sounds like Limbaugh has been watching "The Matrix." And while we search our memory for the moment during Sheehan's protest near President Bush's Crawford, Texas, estate when she produced a set of forged memos, we'll simply point out that the 200 or so people who joined Sheehan for a vigil last night in Crawford and the thousands who gathered at sites across the country appeared, at first blush, to be real human beings.