Posted by
Cincinnatus on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:42:56 PM
As a Co-captain for
Vets for Freedom in Ohio, I had the great opportunity to go to Vets on the Hill III in support of General Petraeus! I have to say that the mood in September was one of urgency and alarm, as even close allies seemed to be hedging their bets with their comments to us, but after scouring the halls of the Senate and House office buildings, I have to say that it seems that most of the supporters we talked to actually believed in the victory we spoke about and the non-supporters were hedging their bets as not to have victory blow up in their faces. The only thing worse for the left than degrading our troops in wartime is for us to actually be victorious while they degraded the troops because then, unlike Vietnam, they will have no excuse!
At the rally in the morning,
John McCain spoke, a friend of mine said that he did much better than he has done with teleprompters as of late. He did really well, he feels it, of course he was there when we came to support them the last time in September too.
Sen. Lindsay Graham had one of the best quotes, "Al Quaeda wants you to leave because you're kicking their a$$"
Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma had a moveing speech about a Soldier who was recently killed, in fact was being buried in Arlington that day, one of his last letters to his father stated, "You couldn't pay me enough to come home right now."
My congressman from Tennessee,
Zach Wamp, gave his passionate rendition of John Stuart Mill:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” h/t
This Aint Hell
After that we spent the rest of the day visiting the Ohio delegation.
Senator Voinovich did want to meet with us. We ran into
Senator Sherrod Brown , in a hat tip to the NEW D strategy, he admitted that it was a fact that we were making military progress in Iraq. This means that the Dems will now focus on the "political" progress of Iraq, of course the irony of a congress which has devoted much of its success to naming post offices, leaving us blind with intelligence, and spending most of their time on witch hunts in the White House, actually lecturing another legislative body on how they need to conduct themselves is interesting in itself.
It was a great day. I thank all the Congressman who actually took the time to meet with us. Because the first vote wasn't until 6, most Congressmen didn't fly in until late, but some actually flew in earlier, just so they could meet with us! I consider that an honor.
Thank you.