On Nov 8, 2006, at 9:12 AM, markmeredith2002 wrote: > I was a little sorry for Leach, the best R in the House, but Yglesias > http://www.matthewyglesias.com/ is right: > > Veteran congressman Jim Leach (R-IA) went down to defeat in the > massacre of 2006. I'm no apologist for "moderate Republicans" but it > is worth saying that Leach was, in my estimation, fairly clearly the > best House Republican.
I don't know, sounds a little to me like saying he's the "best House Negro"--a nice, mediocre personality who's done little else except take up space and allow his vote to be manipulated when things looked close. > Nevertheless, one can only be thrilled with his > defeat. That it happened just goes to show how fundamentally rotten > the whole GOP scene had become. Amen. > Leach was, in many ways, a person possessed of genuinely decent > instincts and some fundamentally sound ideas about how the United > States should conduct itself in the world. Maybe, but in a democracy the politics of personality is supposed to take a back seat to actual ideas, which is how we got stuck with Bush in the first place. And as far as those go, if Leach had any, it never became obvious, in his 30 years there, what they were. He seemed to stand for little except mediocrity and the status quo. > Nevertheless, in practice he was useless. His presence in the congress > did the world no good whatsoever. Exactly. > He'd be more valuable as a professional talking head or stashed away > in some think tank somewhere. Unfortunately, that's where people like him do go after they retire, and one reason the country is such a mess. "Nice", bland, mediocre guys who have done little with their lives except hold on to their seats. No think tank worthy of the name needs more of that. > Whether his total inability to affect the direction of the > country was due to a lack of personal courage and savvy, or simply a > consequence of the structure of contemporary American conservative > politics I couldn't really say. But useless is what he'd become I think he's pretty much always been that way. I don't think in all those years he'd ever authored any new legislation or done one thing to improve the lives of the average Iowan. His retirement is definitely an idea whose time has come. > and a Democratic vote in the House will be useful. That's for sure. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
