[varina davis]

You think our tax dollars are paying for parents of kidnapped children to meet in DC to discuss legislation?Beats the heck out of tax dollars being used to send two jackasses to Baghdad so they can bray on camera. (Or were those Iraqi "tax dollars?")

Of course. Do you think the bureaucrats are wining and dining these people on their dime?!

I agree completely with the second part of your post -- though both trips are photo ops and political haymaking.

[Devil_Anse]

Yes, but in the case of the parents of the missing children, someone else besides a congressthing actually gets to go someplace.