A few parting words about Chuck Percy (1919-2011)

"In today's polarized political climate, Sen. Percy would be described as a rare breed -- an unabashed liberal and skeptic about military spending and war."

-- from the Washington Post obit by Emily Langer,
"Former Sen. Charles H. Percy dies at 91"

by Ken

"A rare breed" by today's standards? I'll say, Emily.

I was only glancing at the Post obit. Then, after suffering the inevitable twinge I experience when I learn that someone who had dropped out of my view has gone to glory by way of Alzheimer's (if you've been through it, you understand), I found myself looking more closely at this chunk:

After an arduous Depression-era upbringing, he advanced quickly as a young man through the ranks of Bell and Howell, a Chicago-based manufacturer of home-movie and other motion-picture equipment. At 29, he was youngest chief executive of a major American corporation.

His rags-to-riches backstory, telegenic looks, resonant voice and prodigious Republican fundraising led many admirers, including Dwight D. Eisenhower, to conclude that he was of presidential timber.

He landed on the cover of Time magazine in 1964 -- two years before he launched a successful Senate bid. Three years later, New York Times political columnist James Reston called Sen. Percy "the hottest political article in the Republican Party," citing his industriousness on progressive causes such as housing for the poor.

As we're reminded by the Nauseating Case of Willard Inc., the Republicans are still scavenging Great White Hopes from the corporate ranks, but once upon a time it was possible for them to come up with a different sort of product.

From the moment he arrived in Washington in 1967, he staked out dovish positions on the Vietnam War and defense spending in general. He urged colleagues to think about the "diplomatic, psychological and economic" impact of their votes on military expenditures. Meanwhile, he called attention to substandard medical care and legal services for the nation’s elderly, an effort that culminated in his 1974 book "Growing Old in the Country of the Young."

He repeatedly clashed with President Richard M. Nixon on foreign and domestic issues, including funding of an antiballistic missile system and Nixon’s nomination of conservative judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sen. Percy also spoke out aggressively about the Watergate affair.

To no one’s surprise, he landed on the president’s "enemies list," and some Republicans even urged him to switch parties. He said he was comfortable as a loner in the otherwise clubby Senate.

(I might add the case of one George Romney -- minus the telegenic looks, of course -- who didn't have much in common politically with his demon spawn Willard Inc.)

I don't propose to draw a Great Lesson from the political rise and fall of Chuck Percy, who was no hero of mine. The 1966 campaign in which he unseated Democratic Sen. Paul Douglas wan't exactly a thing of beauty. But still . . . in this window we have Chuck P, and in the other window that pile of putrid filth Willard Inc. -- the "class" of the 2012 GOP presidential field.

Chuck Percy's death just seems to me to shine a light on a mile marker on the shoulder of the American Political System's Superhighway to Hell.

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