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Okay, I'm blogging up a storm this morning, but I just read that the longtime former Dem. Rep. Lindy Boggs of Louisiana (also onetime Ambassador to the Vatican) is about to celebrate her 90th birthday in high style. Mrs. Boggs is of course far more liberal on lots of domestic/economic issues than I am, but let me take this moment to offer her a major solute and the heartiest of birthday wishes. She is one of the finest ladies I have ever met, and I know that I am far from alone, even among conservatives, in saying that. Unfailingly gracious, patriotic, and principled (she never yielded on her pro-life position, for instance, even as her party became ever-more stringently pro-choice), Mrs. Boggs' personal kindnesses are legendary. And while she is a very loyal Democrat, she was always willing to work across party lines, in genuine cooperative spirit and with her word always her bond, for the good of her country and her home state of Louisiana. She was even quite gracious to former Rep. Dave Treen (later governor of Louisiana) when he arrived in Congress in a neighboring district (after decennial redistricting) after Treen earlier ran three times against Mrs. Boggs' powerful husband Hale (later killed in a plane disappearance in Alaska), once (in 1968) coming within just a few hundred votes of unseating Hale Boggs.

I got to know her at least a little on a more personal level because she was dear friends with my grandparents (their son, my father, nevertheless worked hard for Treen against Hale, all the while saying what a wonderful guy Hale was in person), and served in their wedding and they in hers. So when I came to DC in the 1990s, every time I ran into her at receptions she would pull me aside and ask about my grandparents, my uncle, just about everybody in my family, whose careers and personal triumphs and tragedies she somehow kept track of long-distance.

I saw Mrs. Boggs just three months ago, at my great-uncle's funeral, and an happy to say she seemed to be doing wonderfully well, as vivacious as ever. I hope she has a wonderful birthday, and many happy returns!!!

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