Doling it Out
Yesterday was a national day of mourning and it was both unusual and yet very much an important and necessary event for the nation. I was nine years old in 1963 when John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas at the Texas Book Depositary Building as his motorcade drove past. While it was in the days when cell phones didn’t exist and not everyone carried around portable video recording capabilities (think George Floyd and Ahmoud Arberey tragedies), thanks to Abraham Zepruder and his Bell & Howell 8mm home movie camera, we were able to watch the assassination on what we considered to be an almost real-time basis. It’s amazing to think that was 58 years ago and I think its still fair to say that we all still remember where we were when we heard the news (I was in Mrs. Hunt’s 5th grade classroom at Spring Harbor Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin), and that the visual images of that life-snatching event are burned into our national psyche. It was a moment of national and cultural change, and we all spent the next week in mourning for him, his wife and family and our innocence as a people and nation. I remember the televised train ride north of the casket as people lined the tracks and saluted his passing body. Then we had literally days of TV total dedication to the funeral. The funeral cortege black stallion with reversed boots in the otherwise empty stirrups was a vivid reminder of all that was changing and lost.
There was not so much drama in the passing of Bob Dole, the 98-year-old statesman and WWII war hero, when he died earlier this week of what can only be called natural, old-age causes. Bob Dole is being characterized by the media as one of the last survivors of The Greatest Generation. They were so great because they were born from 1901-1927 (my mother was born in 1916 and died in 2017) and survived growing up during the Great Depression and were the ones who fought WWII for us and saved democracy from the global threat and march forward of fascism and tyranny. Bob Dole was born in 1923 and joined into service in WWII as a U.S. Army Second Lieutenant in 1942. He was severely injured in Northern Italy at the near end of the war in 1945. The generation before Dole’s is called the The Lost Generation (born 1883-1900) since they are the ones that fought in WWI and suffered mightily from what may have been the most tragic and gruesome war where modern weapons were used without the care that was eventually taken with nasty things like poisonous gas. The generation after Dole’s is called The Silent Generation (born 1928-1945) since they were too young to fight in WWII and formed the “silent” majority that worked hard after the war and did good things like lead the civil rights movement and the Great Society, not to mention launching rock n’ roll along the way.
The message in this day of honoring the legacy of Bob Dole seems very clear to me and I can only wish the same is true for others. Yes, this is about heroism, heroism of a man who joined the Army to be of service to his nation in its time of deep need, heroism of a man who took responsibility for other men under his command and put his own life and safety below the priority he gave to others in need, a hero who was not a “chump” for sacrificing himself for others. And yes, this is about honor. Do you remember in Gladiator when Maximus (Russell Crowe) says to his praetorians before battle, “Strength and Honor”. In Ancient Rome, Praetors were commanders in the army and magistrates that assumed the duties of caring for the public good. The message is that we all need to be more like Bob Dole and less like the pseudo-praetorians that are currently enjoying the positions of leadership in our country without the heroism, honor and dedication to the common good that real praetorians take as a sacred oath. That is not to say everyone in leadership in Washington and in all the states are without honor and sense of duty, but that there are too many currently exhibiting that tendency, and, yes, they are mostly Republican (by a long shot right now).
Bob Dole was a country boy from Russell, Kansas who believed in the most conservative of governance principles. He was a staunch Republican who came to Congress in 1960 at the young age of 37, having spent three years in the active Army and another three years in Army hospitals recuperating from his severe injuries. In other words, he was a very young and raw politician. He went on after four terms to take the seat of a three-term Kansas Senator who had served his state for thirty-five years in Congress and as Governor of Kansas. Bob Dole went on to eclipse the career of his predecessor by serving for thirty-five years in Congress as well, but spending the last eleven as his party’s ranking member and the last two years of that time as Majority Leader of the Senate. After that he ran against Bill Clinton in 1996 for Presidency (with running mate Jack Kemp) and lost by a fair margin since Ross Perot drained off 8.1 million votes that would have put him dangerously close to Clinton had they all swung to him (with a difference of only 114,000 votes). And yet, after that loss, Bob Dole famously said of Clinton that he viewed him as his “adversary, not his enemy”.
That ended Bob Dole’s impressive and distinguished political career though he went on to be an influential lobbyist and promoter of many good eleemosynary causes for the rest of his life. He was still politically connected by virtue of his second wife Elizabeth, who served in two cabinet positions and as a Senator from North Carolina for several years. When Bob Dole died last week he had been formally out of politics for 25 years and one might think that made him something of a Walter Mondale-like loser (though Mondale at least was elected to the Vice Presidency) who was liked and respected, but not much held in reverence. Mondale, who died earlier this year at 93) got a flag at half-mast honor from Biden, but was never honored by laying in state in the capitol (some would say that was COVID, but still, it never occurred). So why was Bob Dole accorded this amazing remembrance and honor and why did all of D.C. show their reverence so visibly on Friday?
There are plenty of possible reasons, but I read the bipartisan collegiality shown that day as an important signal and turning point. This may be wishful thinking, but I see it as a sign. Note for the record that while Mike Pence was there next to Dick Cheney (that would be the ex-Vice President and father of renegade anti-Trumper Liz Cheney), Donald Trump was nowhere to be seen. Mitch McConnell was there. Kevin McCarthy was there. Even Ted Cruz was there (sitting next to Amy Klobuchar). But no Trump, the man who has no respect for anyone other than himself. I predict that this all signaled the end of the Trump reign of terror over Republican and U.S. politics overall. Everyone wanted to honor a man that Trump had no time for and who stood for everything Trump reviles, especially all the norms that make us a civilized country. I think Washington just doled out Trump’s pink slip. Bob Dole would be pleased.