As readers here learned today, after 41 years in the House of Representatives, Wisconsin Rep. David Obey has decided to retire. A big loss.
Wisconsin Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin said:
Like his heroes, Gaylord Nelson and "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, Dave was molded by the land and values of the people of Wisconsin and he's never forgotten his roots. He is a champion of working people everywhere, a cherished friend and mentor to me. We owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude for his devotion to public service. In a body where common sense and a commitment to justice are so desperately needed, he will be sorely and sadly missed."
At the newly redesigned The Nation, John Nichols wrote:
...[A]n old-school Wisconsin progressive whose election to the House in 1969 was hailed nationally as a setback not just for then-President Richard Nixon but for Democrats who wanted to compromise with a Republican president on Vietnam and domestic policy, will leave the Congress as its most powerful populist -- a member of the leadership who to the end complained about the caution of fellow Democrats "who should know better." ...
"I have an obligation to fight and to fight hard for what I believe in and for the progressive principles that we are supposed to defend."
As such, Obey represented the left wing of the possible in a House prone to compromise. He did not do as much as some of us would have liked to constrain funding for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan -- even as he criticized both -- but on domestic policy he was one of the truest believers in the prospect that government could do good. ...
Last year, he wrote an $800 billion stimulus bill that was straight out of the New Deal – packed with spending for infrastructure, schools and the stabilization of social-welfare programs administered by state and local governments. It passed the House pretty much as Obey intended, thanks to the smooth partnership between Obey and a member he mentored into the leadership, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California.
In the ugly negotiations that were required to get around the Senate’s filibuster barrier, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, bartered away much of what Obey has included. Thus, instead of a "next New Deal," the final package was a disappointing compromise measure where genuine stimulus spending was traded for spending to cut taxes for the elites.
Obey grumbled. He always grumbled. (At his press conference Wednesday, Obey observed: "There's got to be more to life than explaining Senate procedures to angry constituents or begging Blue Dogs to do what they ought to do by rote.")
We're going to miss you, Congressman.
At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:
Does support of terrorists make one a terrorist? Presumably that depends on whether you take Mister Bush’s squint-eyed November 6, 2001, prescription – "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror" – in a blindly nationalistic fashion or in a moral one. Terrorism isn’t an ideology. It’s a technique. Much as sophists and thugs - such as the late Jeane Kirkpatrick - like to twist the definition to fit who is carrying out a policy, terrorism can't be one thing for them and something else for us.
Yet one of the most pre-eminent of the Pentagon’s chosen propaganda team of ex-military-cum-television-analysts, retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, not only supports but promotes terrorism against Iran. He's still spewing on Fox News despite having been exposed by David Barstow’s revelations three weeks ago.