October 26, 2002

The wise and merciful Eschaton advises those of us who view the loss of Paul Wellstone as the national tragedy that it is to buy the late Senator's book, Conscience of a Liberal, an idea with which I wholeheartedly concur. The title, interestingly enough, refers to a classic tome written by the late Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, a conservative whose integrity and honesty were much admired by Wellstone. In fact, the reaction of those on the right to the Senator's passing has been heartfelt and deeply emotional: several GOP Senators were in tears when they discussed his death, and just in this little corner of the media known as the blogosphere, a number of my more conservative brethren have been especially eloquent in their memorials. What strikes me about most of these elegies is how personal they are; rather than paying innocuous tribute to some politico's "integrity" or to legislation he passed, these tributes all seem to be about the man himself, about ways in which he touched them, even if they disagreed with him. In short, conservatives seem to have viewed Wellstone with much of the same respect and appreciation that liberals felt towards Goldwater, a feeling which speaks to the underlying humanity within each of us.

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