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The Spectacle Blog
There has been much grousing on liberal blogs about the primary defeat Tuesday of moderate Indiana Senator Richard Lugar by a Tea Party conservative. The usual name-calling applies. A particularly breathless one out of Michigan laments that the message from Lugar’s defeat is that: “Nobody gives a damn about statesmen anymore.”
Gee, I’d always thought a statesman was a past-it guy with no recent arrest record who had lost his last election. So I consulted the venerable “Conservative’s Political Dictionary” where I’m instructed that in addition to these qualifications, a statesman is: “A long-serving politician who looks good in a suit, has the requisite amount of gray hair, gives long, boring speeches on foreign policy that no one listens to, and does absolutely nothing to curtail insane expansion of government and attendant taxing, spending, and regulation.”
Oh. I guess the little lady from Michigan got one right. Enjoy your retirement, Dick. The hair looks great.
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More Blog Posts by Larry Thornberry
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/05/10/whither-statesmen
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Bill| 5.10.12 @ 1:38PM
Dick Lugar needs to thank to Judge Sotomayer and Kegan, for his support, not the Tea Party, who ousted him by a good conservative, Mr. Murdock.
The next batch: Ted Cruz of TX, Stenberg of NE, and so on.
Roscoe| 5.10.12 @ 1:57PM
"Nobody gives a damn about statesmen anymore.".... that's a good one! Coming from someone of the ilk who brought us the Clintons!
RJ| 5.10.12 @ 1:59PM
Lugar lost because he was out of touch with his constituents. It isn't rocket science. The prime ingredients of leadership are self-sacrifice and virtue. Dick Lugar didn't help his standing in how we will remember him by the way he campaigned in the closing weeks. It certainly wasn't statesman-like.
PattyMor| 5.10.12 @ 4:47PM
Lugar lost because he was way past the "sell by date". He stayed too long, and as with all "moderates" they will trend more and more liberal as time goes by. And he hasn't lived in Indiana for YEARS. Really, too pathetic for words.
Crassus| 5.10.12 @ 4:56PM
Like his colleague Arlen Specter, Lugar lost because he stayed on the job too long. At least the likes of Bob Dole, Alan Simpson, and Nancy Kassebaum knew when to quit. Lugar didn't so he got the boot put up his arse by the voters of Indiana. Good for them.
TarponGman| 5.11.12 @ 7:48AM
I made the mistake of clicking the link to read the cited column. What a whacko. Is that what passes for analysis up in MI these days?