It was an eclectic group of folks who marched down to Congressman Peter Welch's office on Wednesday, half-hoping they would pressure him into opposing the $124 billion military spending bill that the House is about to vote on.

You had old lefty types like state poet Grace Pale, Will Allen, Liz Blum and Liberty Unionites Peter Diamondstone and Boots Wardinski. You had newer lefty folks -- like a couple of UVM students and Liza Earle and Martha Hennessey. And you had a couple of agitator types, like Mike "Snarky Boy" Colby and Dennis "Impeach Bush Now" candidate Morrisseau.

As the afternoon sit-in wore on, the fissions in the group became more evident. They wanted Welch to vote no, but clearly only some saw him as an out-and-out traitor they'd work to defeat if he didn't accede to their wishes. After all, some in the group obviously didn't vote for him last year and won't do so in the future, either, no matter what he does.

They also wrestled with whether it was worth it to get arrested. Would arrests cast a bad light on their demonstration? Did it make sense to get arrested at Welch's office when, at least for the moment, the worst thing they could say about Welch was that he hadn't decided what he was going to do on the bill which, by the way, is mostly opposed by hawkish, Bush-loyalist Republicans.

As it happened, while they were staging their sit-in at Welch's Burlington office, the Congressman's office in Washington was getting scores of e-mails from people urging him too vote yes on the bill. Many of those e-mails were encouraged by MoveOn.org., the potent lefty Internet-driven organization that surely most all of the demonstrators follow closely.

And, irony of ironies, one of the protesters at Welch's office was carrying a yellow "Out of Iraq" sign tha, in small print at the bottom of the poster, displayed MoveOn's logo and identifier information.

-- Sam Hemingway