They say "show me" in Missouri...

There is this really great video clip floating around conservative circles on the Internet. It is from a town hall meeting in Virginia hosted by Congressman Jim Moran (you may recall he had to step down from a House leadership post in 2003 for saying Jews were pushing for the Iraq war). Moran brought as a guest Congressman John Murtha, whose comment about an immediate redeployment of American troops is shadowed only by his comments that he would join the military today.

But the comments were from Mark Seavey, who recently returned from Afghanistan. The video is here.

Here are the interesting comments to me:

And Congressman Moran, 200 of your constituents just returned from Afghanistan. We never got a letter from you; we never got a visit from you. You didn't come to our homecoming. The only thing we got from any of our elected officials was one letter from the governor of this state thanking us for our service in Iraq, when we were in Afghanistan. That's reprehensible.

To note, the governor of Virginia is Mark Warner, a Democrat, and is considered a contender for a 2008 presidential run. He may to invest in a globe between now and then.

Here's what is really interesting to me. For all the comments that politicians make about their support of troops (this is for both Democrats and Republicans), how many put in more actions than words? What is the record of congressmen and senators and governors and assemblymen attending and monitoring homecomings of troops? I'd be particularly interesting in the rates of troops here in my congressional district, since we have Beale Air Force Base.

I'm also saying this willing to bet money that the Republicans are at a higher rate than Democrats. Not that much higher, but higher nonetheless.

If Democrats and progressives want to efficiently turn the tide in favor of their position, wouldn't it benefit them to put more action behind what they say?