May The Better Man In Dole vs Clinton RIP

Unlike the still breathing Bill Clinton, Senator Bob Dole died at age 98 a wounded war hero who also swam in the DC Swamp for a half-century as a rare compromiser, but as one whose courage & integrity could not be compromised. Two life-long politicians, two similar yet different mind sets. May the better man now finally RIP.

No need to repeat the MSM obits reminding how the Kansas native was severely wounded in Italy during WWII saving a comrade, battled his way back to health after a gut-wrenching rehab & served 36 years in Congress with one good arm; nor is it necessary to remind how controversial he could be in “fiercely” defending Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal when few others did or how tough he could be as a partisan budget slasher in the Senate, then, helped guide President Reagan’s historic tax cuts through Congress, thereby triggering an unprecedented economic boom.

What might rate some attention is Mr. Dole’s almost epic & always classy three tries at becoming President, especially, the last one in which President Clinton seeking re-election, falsely accused him in attack ads of wanting to trash social security. Despite being beleaguered by accusations of harassment & buttressed by a solid economy, Clinton won the 1996 election handily. As related by a 2008 WSJ article, when Mr. Dole afterwards confronted Mr. Clinton in the Oval Office about the social security campaign canards, he was (in)famously told by a “smiling” president with his signature “Bubba grin” that “You gotta do what you gotta do.” Exactly. And the Bubba did what he had to do to survive the Monica Lewinsky scandal that soon followed. In Mr. Dole’s case, pulling that wounded GI out of a fox hole and getting torn apart by German shrapnel was the kind of thing HE had to do repeatedly throughout his life.

Davd Soul