However, there is a bold line between honoring the dead to appease the mourners and engaging in an act of deification. Governor Doyle delivered an oration yesterday offering such qualities to the late former governor and US Senator Gaylord Nelson that would have made the mourners of Augustus Caesar blanche.
Every time we pour a glass of water, breathe the air in our cities, swim in our lakes, and enjoy the beauty of Wisconsin’s natural heritage, we ought to say thank you to Gaylord Nelson for all that he’s given each of us.It is one thing to honor the deceased Nelson for being a environmentalist before it became trendy, but must we literally thank him for the food we eat and the water drink and the air that we breathe? (For the latter, I always thanked the Hollies.)
One can imagine dinnertime around the Doyle family table.
“Jessica, would you please offer Grace?”
“Thank you Gaylord for the gifts we are about to receive. Amen.”
“And Gabe, would you please lead us in the Our Nelson?”
“Our Nelson, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Earth Day come, Thy Will be done,
Until the Earth is our Heaven”
“And finally little Asiah?”
“Rub-a-dub-dub. Thank Nelson for the grub.”
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Meanwhile, we could not pass on the remarks of Congressman Obey who posited that had then-President Lyndon Johnson listened to then-Senator Gaylord Nelson, there might be one less [Vietnam] War Memorial in Washington DC. One might point out that had the Democratic Party not listened to the likes of Gaylord Nelson in the ensuing years, we may well have been spared the disasters of the fall of Saigon and the Communist take-over of South Vietnam, the ensuing refugee crisis of the boat people, the rise of Pol Pot in neighboring Cambodia, the death of over two million Cambodians, the post-Vietnam foreign policy paralysis (which reached its worst level under President Carter), the end of the Democrats as a serious intellectual player in foreign policy, and the nomination of Senator John Kerry last year. Such is the advice Gaylord Nelson and others of his kind gave to the Democrats of his party, and such is the course they have followed.
I, too, would be playing the blues on my harmonica, if I were so gifted, as I mourn the Democrat Party that could have been.
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So we take a moment to pause in remembrance of the former Senator and Governor who served Wisconsin for so many years. The flags are appropriately lowered for a man who served his state and represented it for so many years. We remark on the longevity of his service, and we are grateful Bob Kasten ended Nelson’s career when he did.
