It’s tough supporting the troops.

This week, Rep. Fortney Hillman “Pete” Stark (D-CA) observed a group of high-ranking military officers in the Capitol gallery watching Congress do its thing. Apparently concerned that these flag officers were just lollygagging about and not doing their part for the war, Stark fired off a letter to Secretary of Defense Gates to express his concern that, “[a]t a time when our nation is at war, our troops are over-extended, and the Administration is literally asking for emergency military spending, what good to the ‘war on terror’ is having U.S. Generals and other top ranked officers spending hours sitting in the gallery of the House of Representatives?” And oh, by the way, get me their names, ranks and serial numbers, too. Unknown to Stark, who recently accused Republicans of sending our kids to Iraq “to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement,” the officers were part of a class of senior Army War College officers. They were combat veterans all, and they were taking part in an officially approved tour of Congress as part their curriculum. You’re a class act, Fortney.

Meanwhile, fellow Left Coast fruit loop San Fran Nan Pelosi (D-Syria) was gallivanting about the Middle East, uninvited as usual, and undermining U.S. foreign policy. She got a chilly reception in Iraq, where the government kept her at arm’s length until she admitted that the state of affairs within the country had improved, and she stopped whining that U.S. troops must be immediately withdrawn. Then it was off to Israel, where she observed with Pelosian perspicacity that we must keep Israel secure.

And these are the people whose party stands to increase its majority in Congress come November.