This is not a diary about the loss of political discourse in this country. This is not a diary about absurdity of Republican talking points. This is not a diary about people who use Liberty and Fascist as talking points without knowing what they mean.
This is a diary about my friend.
Many of you may know that Tom Perriello is a freshman Democrat from Virginia's Fifth District. The Fifth is the largest district in the Commonwealth, spanning from Greene County just north of Charlottesville, to the North Carolina border.
Tom upset Virgil Goode, an icon in the district for almost 40 years, who had originally campaigned for the State Senate on affirming the Equal Rights Amendment, but had, particularly since entering Congress in 1997, become part of the Tom Tancredo wing of the Republican Party. He blamed everything, from job loss, to 9/11, to climate change on illegal immigration.
Tom won by the slimmest of margins. It was the upset of 2008, the closest race other than Al Franken's. Tom won by practicing "conviction" politics believing that his fundamental values of faith, promotion of the common good, and hard work for those in need, would propel him to victory. He was right.
In his first term, I have been so proud of Tom. He voted for SCHIP, he voted for the Lilly Ledbetter Act, he's brought new industries to his district, and he has increased health care and job coverage options for veterans. Last week, he voted for ACES, believing that climate change is not something we can wait on. "There are two types of communities: There are communities that are looking backwards and communities that are looking forward," he said. He's working to make sure communities in his district are looking (and moving) forward.
Republicans are apoplectic. They are calling in "Cap and Tax" or "Crap and Trade." They are factually wrong of course, but I don't have a problem with this type of political disagreement, or even their language. I'm even proud that a local television station is pulling the NRCC attack ad because it's so false.
But i wasn't moved to write this diary until today. Yesterday a bunch of Tea-Party-folks gathered outside Perriello's office to voice their displeasure. They'd been enflamed by a couple of local Rush-Limbaugh wanna-be radio hosts and they came out with their signs and their megaphones.
Calling U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello a "traitor" and a "coward," roughly 125 protesters picketed the freshman Democrat’s Charlottesville office Thursday to denounce Perriello’s vote for an energy bill that aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
and
In the crowd at Thursday’s protest, there were several yellow Gadsden flags that depict a coiled rattlesnake and the words "Don’t Tread on Me." Protesters held signs with such slogans as: "Hooray!! Another Political Prostitute;" "Tom Perriello is a Cap + Traitor;" and "Perriello — An Incompetent, Cowardly, Treasonous Fellow."
One protester questioned whether climate change is real, prompting a loud cheer from the crowd. "It’s a way to control us!" one man yelled.
This is too much. This is Michelle Bachmann/Joe McCarthy tactics. Tom Perriello a traitor??? Or a Coward??? This is a man who after graduating from Yale Law school, turned down seven figure salaries to move to Sierra Leone to work with child soldiers on a peacebuilding mission. A Coward? He went to Liberia and smuggled an arrest warrant out of the country that helped get dictator Charles Taylor deposed? A Traitor? He worked in Afghanistan to develop non-military ways of ending the violence in that country, making it and the world safer. He was an original signer of Darcy Burner's "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq". He was a co-founder of Avaaz.org, the global Move-on which has brought young people into public service and helped global advocacy reach previously unknown levels.
After all that, he came back to his home and went to Congress. He's making the lives of people all around him better, and those who disagree with his vote on a single bill are calling him a Traitor and a Coward. The NRCC says,
NRCC spokesman Andy Sere said, voters in his district who once thought of him as "that nice young man ... is actually a smug globalist who cares more about his Daily Kos cred than the farmers, laborers and middle-class families in his district."
I'm worried about what's happening in America where people like Tom Perriello are quickly called traitors and cowards for a (good) vote they make. I'll end this diary with Tom's word, because I think they all we can expect from any public service.
I care more about national security than I do about being reelected. I can live with losing an election. I can't deal with being a coward