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Weekends are for relaxing and reflection. Looking backward and ahead. [And this time of year, hoping the damned temperature does in fact rise or the weather guys will have a lot of explaining to do!]
We've begun to contemplate the passing of an era with Byron Dorgan's retirement announcement. Because he wasn't one of the posturers and preeners who feel it is their divine right to always show up on the pundit shows, he may not have been the best known of senators outside our own North Dakota borders.
But those who know him know well what a legacy of honor and regard he has amassed.
Two tales to tell about the Senator you may not know so well.
Thanks to Brendan for this milemarker [yeah, I know, I don't often venture into conservative blogospherics either]: A soft spot for Senator Dorgan.
And to Barbara for this: Minnesota Senators lose key ally. Kinda makes you wonder how much better this country could have fared had Dorgan been Obama's mentor, too, instead of Loathsome you-know-who.
We salute our heroes. Some are on the nation's stage, or the world's.
And some — we carry them with us in our hearts, right, Barbara?
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crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal and Clotheslineblog
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3 comments:
Our heroes. Yes, indeed, dear Prairie. Neither of us knew the other's, and yet I hold Lincoln in my heart, too. May that lighten the heaviness just a wee bit!! And thanks for the h/t in your post.
We bloggers write with our hearts as much as our keyboards. Maybe because the caregiving role is so fresh in my own memory I see the caregiving role that Senator Dorgan has long given his constituents and the larger nation.
He has been a good and faithful steward, a true definition of public servant at its best. His forty years have sped by too fast...may his next (retirement? huh! not likely!) forty years...okay, I'm ever the optimist...be stewardship, too, at its best.
The first time I heard Dorgan speak--ND teachers' convention, early 70's--I knew he was going places. I was a very young high school teacher, and he was state attorney general. He's a principled statesman, which is all too rare these days. With too many representatives it's become me first, party next, constituents a distant third. The people must find some way to change that. "Prairie Sunshine" is one way. Thanks for being part of the solution, Sandy.
I guess we can't fault Senator Dorgan for wanting to "do some other things" with his life. But I'd hoped he'd be more like Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy--in it to win it or die trying. Once a principled representative achieves that seniority, he's more than the sum of his parts.
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