* US Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) has announced he will not run for
re-election because he is suffering from a disorder known as
Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration which is a disorder of the brain
leading to a "group of progressive dementias that result from
decline in brain cells which control behavior, thinking and
communication."
* Pete Domenici was first elected to the US Senate in 1972. Just to
remind us how long ago 1972 is; here is an entry from the
"Information Please" website:
"Five men are apprehended by police in attempt to bug Democratic
National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.'s Watergate
complex-start of the Watergate scandal (June 17)."
* I don't think that Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) would have known me
by seeing me at any point over his past 36 years of public
service, but I have been an admirer of his because one of the
tests of a really good public servant is not just the work he or
she does, but the people that they gather around them and who stay
with them.
* Domenici has had great people around him - such as his Chief of
Staff Steve Bell - for most of his Senate career.
* When the GOP took control of the Senate in the election of 1980,
my boss, Dan Quayle took a seat on the Senate Budget Committee. As
Quayle's press secretary I thought I should sit in some of the
Budget Committee hearings.
* I had no idea what was going on, but Domenici did and so did Bell.
Domenici used his great talents to devise the first Republican
budget in decades. Bell worked hard to help me understand what I
was watching so I could pass that information along to reporters
covering the freshman Senator from Indiana.
* It wasn't just me. Even the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote:
"Sen. Domenici is one of America's premiere lawmakers and
statesmen. His work on the federal budget, both as a minority and
majority senator, has been exemplary."
* Santa Fe, as those of you who may have spent more than 17 seconds
there know, is not exactly a hot-bed of Conservative thought.
* The Domenici/Quayle connection continued until an afternoon in
August, 1988 in New Orleans when the Republican nominee for
President, George H.W. Bush, announced he had chosen Quayle to be
his Vice Presidential running mate.
* There are many who believed that the man who finished in
second-place to Quayle in the VP sweepstakes was Pete Domenici.
* The Senate, which is receding in support among Americans under the
leadership of men like Harry Reid (D-Nv) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY),
will be weakened by the loss of Pete Domenici - a man of
principal, courage, intelligence, and above all patriotism.
* Speaking of Harry Reid, his attack on Rush Limbaugh speaks volumes
about the damage the MoveOn.org people have done to the Democrats
in Congress.
* Briefly, ABC News reported on men who claim to have served in Iraq
or Afghanistan, claim to have been awarded medals for bravery, and
claim to have witnessed atrocities by coalition forces - only to
find out they have never been any closer to the US Military than
reading a Sgt. Rock comic book in junior high.
* These miscreants have been named "phony soldiers" which is the
term Rush used to describe them.
* A left-wing blog misquoted Rush and accused him of, in effect,
saying any soldier who disagreed with US policies in the region
were "phony soldiers."
* Stung by their inability to stop MoveOn.org from denigrating the
US military, Congressional Democrats piled on Limbaugh (a) even
though they knew he was not talking about regular soldiers or (b)
even though they knew the context of what Rush had said.
* Rush's point was that the Popular Press will report anything that
anyone claiming to be a soldier says so long it is in opposition
to Administration policy without even the most modest
fact-checking to see if the person making the claims (a) ever
served or (b) the events they described ever happened.
* Mullsters of the world unite! We are faced with political
opponents who, as both the Limbaugh and Domenici cases have shown,
have no sense of civility, respect, or decency in their attempts
to take control of the American political process.