The names of US Senators McClure, Craig and Kempthorne are well known. US Senator Richard Neuberger's name is not.
Senator Neuberger left the Senate in 1960 - a victim of cancer.
Neuberger (center) penned many national articles and books throughout the pre and post-WWII period of time and served in Oregon's Legislature at the beginning of the war, resigning to serve in the Armed Forces. Upon his return to Oregon, he re-won his State Senate seat and his wife won a seat in the State House (making them the only husband-wife team to ever serve in a legislature together)
One book he authored is called "They Never Go Back to Pocatello". As an Oregonian, the title's strangely a bit Idaho-centered, isn't it? (Maybe it just sounded rustic to his geography-challenged editors?)
His fundamental point of the semi-ancient piece was this:
Once, small state US Senators leave office, they stay in DC.
But do they?
The last two days have seen a flurry of articles on Jim Mcclure, due to his recent stroke, of Dirk Kempthorne, due to leaving the Interior Department and Larry Criag, due to retiring from the US Senate. All Idaho politicians, all Idaho Senators.
Jim McClure never left us. Our prayers go out to him and his family. He has always had the pulse of this state.
Dirk Kempthorne left us. He's now trying to see if he'll return to ID or stay in DC. Stay tuned. My call is he'll return to his adopted-state of ID, that he has repeatedly said he loves. It would be good to have him join McClure, Former Governors Andrus, Batt and Evans as they continued to help folks here at home.
Larry Craig has now announced a business in DC and ID, upon his departure from the Senate on January 2nd. I wish him well. Larry's always been a friend of mine. Even during the initial aftermath of his arrest, I was able to have a precious time of conversation with him in his Senate office (with our staff from New Hope).
DC? Pocatello? Boise? Seems like most Idaho boys (sans Steve Symms) come home.
The irony of Neuberger's article is that it finally took a pine box to bring him back to his "Pocatello" in Oregon. All the Idaho "pols" walked out on their own initiative...and the smart ones returned to Idaho....if not specifically to Pocatello.
Food for thought on how beautiful the Pacific Northwest is....and this state, in particular.
Den
From time to time on this blog, I've moved in-between political discussion and issues of faith.
To some who visit the site, it's a wee bit uncomfortable. To others it's downright painful.
I certainly understand.
I've spent my life involved in a sort of tension between politics and faith...and the verdict's still not in.
Has it worked? To be honest, not fully. Like many, I've worshipped my work, worked at my play and I've played at my worship. Much of the time, it involved politics. A Jewish king from many centuries ago probably said it best: "It's all foolishness, like chasing after the wind."
Or is it? Why would a Bill Sali run for US Congress or a Sarah Palin run for VP? Ceratinly not to start fights, right?
The personal attacks against Bill Sali and Sarah Palin make me sad. They are made out to be idiots. Opponents mock them and treat them as fools. Yet, both have an intense faith in Christ.
Could it be that those who worship their "work" may be caught off-guard by the fact that neither Palin nor Sali NEED their titles to complete themselves. They simply don't care what the mockers think of them.
They love God and speak as if He's a part of their lives...because He is.
For those of you who don't "get" Palin or Sali, let me help you: they serve an audience of One. And you are not that "one". To those who are angered by that assessment, realize that though politics may mean EVERYTHING to you, people like Bill Sali and Sarah Palin could walk away from it tomorrow. They have a sure-fire faith in the God who creates. He's the object of their affections and the sounding board of their thoughts and policies. He is the reason they initially ran for office. He "created" an opportunity to serve others and represent Him.
And that competes with some folks' religion, doesn't it?
Probably not yours, but I bet you know someone who fits the bill, don't you?
Den
The Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview grows more tiresome with every new re-view.
I mean really....stop it, please.
Couric's TV 2-shots seem always to have her grimacing (artfully, I suppose). Or the b-roll shows her body awkwardly angled away from Palin...(Kinda like: "Get me the heck out of this blind date!") Sarah Palin was "taken to the movies", but boy did that little Katie leave her eating popcorn kernels, alone....
What a mis-casting, from the get-go.
Given that, I decided to hit the movies myself and see if there were any other co-star mis-casting in a current movie that could lead me out of the blues and purge my feelings against the widow-woman, Katie. No, not really, but I found some terrific co-casting.
I found it in A Righteous Kill.....and then I found somethig even better! I found the key(s) to unlock the painful mystery of the Curic-Palin pain-fest:
Robert Deniro and Al Pacino.
What?
Yeah, listen up.....they should have been interviewed by "Katie the Knife". Cause, they're the only ones who can get away with saying the "F-word" and not make it sound like they're swearing....(keep reading for the "script")
Continue reading "Couric + Palin interview? How about Pacino + Deniro interview?" »
For those of you who are students of numerology and eschatology, you may find it interesting (and somewhat depressing?) that the single biggest 1-day drop in the history happened today - Dow Jones stock dropped 777 points.
Now, I'm not a big "mystic-numbers guy", but ya gotta sit up and take notice, occasionally. Trust me, if the drop had been 666 points, the freak-show-on-parade would have marched down Wall Street AND Main Street. But what to make out of the "number of perfection", held in esteem by followers of the Hebrew and Christian GOD?
Hmm, set aside the shear volume of loss by investors and set aside the political blow-back on those who voted FOR the bail-out or AGAINST it- and just take a second to ask the question, "What is God doing?"
The question that might be better to ask, first, may be: What is God NOT doing? My guess is that He's NOT spanking America for greed and avarice, though we may deserve such a treatment in some people's minds.
He's also NOT forcing people to divest their wealth out of fear...'cause they are doing that themselves, highlighting His gift of "choice" in their lives.
Are we on the same page?
So, what is God doing? It seems to me that He's allowing people who have too great a concern for their inve$tment$ on Earth (conservatives and liberals in OR out of politics) to face the insecurity of the loss of their own wealth - by watching it slip away right in front of them. Many a man and woman will confront their own mortality tonight, knowing that they lost almost everything in one day. And when all a person has is God, that is often the time that all a person really needs is God.
Pain and suffering are our lot as a nation today and tonight...but joy comes in the morning.
May souls be saved even if fortunes are lost.
This may, in fact, be the most perfect day in the history of modern America...the day the financial markets bent their collective knee to the God who allows them AND the people who invest in them - to even exist. He's asking the perfect question: What are YOU doing with my son, Jesus Christ?
But that's just me.....
What do you think?
Den
Not sure if you remember my posting that Senator Obama's incredibly poor decision to choose Senator Joe Biden could ultimately come to be seen as the equivalent of Senator George McGovern's equally incredibly poor choice of Senator Thomas Eagleton, as his running mate in 1972. What, no McGovern-Eagleton '72 buttons and signs?
Probably because there are none - at least none that can be found. Eagleton was replaced by Kennedy-esque R. Sargent Shriver, just weeks after the Democrat Convention. By the way...they lost.
So, read the following piece from DC that was circulated all across the US just minutes ago. Gary Bauer's reach is amazing....he's skeptical that it could/would happen. I am not.
Remember, www.Dennismansfield.com was the first blog in America that connected the Palin-TR comparisons.
Den
Bye, Bye Biden?
I’ve been getting a lot of messages lately about the rumor that Obama will drop Biden from the ticket next month and replace him with Hillary in an “October surprise” intended to offset the gains Senator McCain has made with his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. I am skeptical about Hillary being on the ballot in November.
Of course, with the Clintons, you “never say never,” and Biden is certainly doing his best to make the idea more attractive every day. From calling Obama campaign commercials “terrible” to taking contradictory stands on clean coal, Biden is living up to his reputation for having “foot-in-mouth” disease.
By the way, if John McCain had said, as Joe Biden recently did, that President Roosevelt went on the TV after the market crash in 1929, we’d be getting non-stop stories about the onset of senility and how unfit he is. (Roosevelt wasn’t president in 1929 and the television was still in the experimental stage.)
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