It's About Time: Baron Visits Iraqi-Bound Troops He Dodged Earlier by Going on Vacation

Baron talks a good game on the military and on veterans, but time and again his actions speak louder than his words.

Like when he voted to tie the hands of General David Petraeus and tried to stop a strategy that everyone now recognizes has worked even better than hoped.

Or that time he told a supporter in Bloomington that he wasn't going to vote for any more funding for the Iraq War.

Or, most recently, when he decided to go off to on a taxpayer-funded vacation in the Pacific, to tropical Guam, sunny Australia, and oh-so-friendly Vietnam instead of honoring the soldiers of Indiana's largest National Guard deployment since WW2.

Baron was too good to join the Governor, Senator Lugar, the mayor of Indianapolis, and six of his fellow Hoosier members of Congress (including his fellow Democrats) to say goodbye.

Nope. He couldn't come.

Improving his sun tan in Guam and saying hello to the folks in Vietnam was too important to him, despite the National Guard deployment to Iraq having been set over six months ago.

Baron might recall the Iraq War.

He voted to start it, a vote he has since variously stood by and repudiated.

Baron will vote to send Hoosier soldiers to war, but he won't bother to see them off when they go.

Now, though, Baron seems to have realized that running off to Vietnam and to tropical Pacific island paradises for a taxpayer-funded vacation while troops are deploying is apt to get some attention.

So he's going to Fort Stewart in Georgia today to see a few of the brave Hoosier National Guard soldiers that are finishing their training before heading to Iraq.

From the politics blog at the Courier-Journal:

Rep. Baron Hill, D-9th District, Indiana, is scheduled tomorrow to visit soldiers from his state who will soon be headed to Iraq.

The lawmaker will be visiting with members of the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which is training at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

Hill will travel to Georgia from Washington, accompanied by Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard.

It's about time.

(Though I suspect that General Umbarger has better things to do with his time than escort Baron Hill to Georgia for a photo op just because Baron was too busy with his taxpayer-funded vacation to make it to the main event.)

And Baron Hill should say something to those soldiers and their families to apologize for not joining everyone else in bidding them farewell in Indianapolis two weeks ago.

Even then it will be too little, too late.

Actions speak louder than words, Baron.

They also speak louder than staged photo-ops.

Your actions were heard loud and clear.