Leaderslip

 

Paul Simon died the other day. No, not that Simon with Garfunkle, but the former Senator from Illinois. He was a good fellow who voted a good conscience. I met him at a joint political event at a nursing home where he appeared along with my pal Barry who was running for Congress that year. Simon was the star, of course, as he stood in the middle of the room; a short, small man with aids in each ear.

He took four or five questions and though he spoke to each, with purpose and ardor, he didn’t answer a single one. They weren’t tough questions, either. In fact, they were all lobs, or could have been treated as such, but even though he might have answered all of them easily, he circumvented each with a casual alacrity polished with years of practice.

I broke bread yesterday with Barbara Boxer. That’s United States Senator Barbara Boxer representing The Golden State of California. Less golden this day, as a dreary, almost politically-grey pall ceilinged the skies, anointing lunch-goers with large heavy raindrops. But the atmosphere was seasonally-effervescent in the cellar dining room at a San Francisco restaurant, where my political cohorts and I enjoyed her annual visit to our luncheon seminar.

She couldn’t stay long -- not enough time to dine with us, even -- but she made a statement and took some self-professed softball questions and spread good cheer among the cognoscenti. And then she left, before I had a chance to toss out my question, something I’d been thinking about recently and anxiously. It would have been a tough pitch, but an easy one to swing around because that’s what politicians do.

Had I gotten the opportunity, this is what I would have said to Ms. Boxer. Senator, thank you for all the good votes you’ve cast in the name of the people of California. There are very few occasions when I would have asked you to vote differently. But I’m not sure that’s enough, especially now, with the wholesale assault the Republicans are waging against the environment, their looting of the Treasury, and their involvement of our men and women in a pointless foreign war.

If we are to look to the Democrats for rescue, relief and repair, I would have said, then we will need some Democrats who are ready to do more than vote right. We will need true leaders, not the kind who roll over for tax cuts, the unhealthy Medicare bill, and the IraqAttaq. Will you be one of those leaders?

Looks like she and we will have another six years to find out.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.

 

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