R.I.P. Good Time Charlie

"A faulty and imperfect man as are we all, but a fellow who understood that Democracy was better than Communism, and that elites are not better-suited to accrue power simply by virtue of their elitism. Wilson was a plain, down-to-earth fellow; he knew that when he did wrong and got away with it - as when he was involved with a DUI hit-and-run in DC- he had genuinely 'got off easy' and admitted it. He knew that he had 'earned' no special consideration, simply because he worked for the people of his district.

Come to think of it, that may be what I liked best about Charlie Wilson. He understood that he worked for the people of his congressional district, and his country. Not the other way around.

One of the things that bothered me about the film, 'Charlie Wilson’s War' was that it portrayed Democrats as they used to be -as indisputably pro-American as anyone, and ideological only to the water’s edge - and only served to remind me how far away we have all come since his like filled the halls of congress.

I must wear the label 'conservative' only because 'classical liberalism' has been displaced by something that has appropriated the name, 'liberal,' and built upon its foundation something so narrow, closed-minded and thought-police-friendly as to disorient and daze the world.

As I wrote to some friends just now, 'if Democrats were still like Charlie Wilson, I would still be a Democrat.'"

-- The Anchoress