One of the most interesting events of the season took place on Wednesday evening. A portrait of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Miami congresswoman, was unveiled in the hearing room of the Foreign Affairs Committee. She was chairwoman in the last Congress, so her portrait goes up, along with those of Henry Hyde, Dante Fascell, and other worthies.
There was a striking array of speakers and attendees. On one hand you had Charlie Rangel, and on the other, Antúnez, the heroic Cuban dissident. So both sides of the Cuban equation were, in a sense, represented. You had Nancy Pelosi and John Bolton, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Paul Ryan. And at the center of it all, you had Ileana, that gutsy warrior for freedom.
As Ryan said, she is a champion of “the vulnerable and voiceless.”
My column today is devoted to this unusual event: “Ily’s Hour: Notes on a hanging.” An appetizing cast of characters. (And one of the most? Ileana’s husband Dexter Lehtinen, a Vietnam combat vet and all-around hombre.)