WTMJ radio talk show host and blogger Charlie Sykes responds, saying Christofferson couldn't wait for the burial before he goes for the "ankle-bite," and then adds sarcastically, "classy." "Note to Xoff: You won't find any similar treatment of the late Gaylord Nelson by a local conservative blogger."
Um, er, yeah, except...
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.Well, at least I waited until he was planted.
There is always a pull towards being nice to the recently departed. "Don't speak ill of the dead." It's culturally ingrained in our character. Even when the person should be, and even is, despised, we try to remember the good points in the person's character. Possibly it's because we want someone to remember us fondly after we go in some futile attempt in extending our presence on this earth. Possibly it's because we fear some evil will happen to us. Possibly it's the result of trying to be sensitive to those close to the deceased. I'll leave that question to the sociologists and psychiatrists.
But, even as the Vatican once employed the "Devil's Advocate" when considering sainthood, there is a benefit in recalling the flaws of a life now being mourned. Some sense of perspective is required, if only to remember that nobody is universally beloved.
In recent years we've tended to lose that sense of perspective. I always like to point back to the death and funeral of Princess Diana, an event soooooo painful to the general public that it became almost criminal (certainly in poor taste) to mention adultery by the future queen was once a capital offense, expensive taste in clothes or not.
I've not always been kind to the recently departed in this blog. I'm not sure if I've been less than "classy" when noting recent arrivals to the Fires of Hell, or making light of excessive fawning over dead celebrities, rock stars and politicians. I take my cue from the late comic Steve Allen who, upon hearing of the suicide of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain, commented that it was "a good career move."
So if Christofferson or whomever wishes to take on the memory of William Rehnquist, let them. He's beyond caring and in a far better place than the world he affected so greatly. Those of us Rehnquist has left behind will just have to defend his ideas where we can, acknowledge his faults where we must, and learn from each. Just don't ask us to speak kindly at the funerals of his critics.
