An outBReAK of cAndoR 339
get the best laughs, and you’re quoted most often, by putting someone
down in a witty or interesting way. To do the opposite—to laud someone
in politics—is like wearing a sign that says This Guy Fooled Me. But it’s
good to write about those you admire, and to explain why.... So now, in-
spired by the Senate, I’m going to do some more of it about Slade....
He has been famous in his 18 years in the Senate for several things,
one being that he often called influential columnists, friends, and politi-
cal operatives to lobby them in support of important pieces of literature.
He is a voracious and possibly compulsive reader of novels and
history....
I want to say he is unusual for a political figure but actually he is un-
usual, period: a genuine intellectual who lives in the world of ideas and
yet a person who is simply delighted to be alive. Everything he does is so
much fun. This sounds corny, and sometimes is, but every stranger he
meets is interesting and says the smartest things. Every hockey game
yields up fascinating glimpses into his athletic young niece’s character.
His constituents, especially the recent immigrants, are simply the most
brilliant and hardworking people in the world. And his wife just said the
most amazingly on-target thing about Al Gore, would you like to hear it?
He has zest. I have simply never known anyone who enjoys life as
much as he does.... Among political figures, rarely have shrewdness and
idealism been so intertwined. His career has been marked by the pursuit
of progress within a framework of politics as the art of the possible, as
they used to say. He has a conservative’s insights and a moderate’s
instincts....
The bad news is all that capacity for work and wisdom has been re-
moved from the Senate, where it did a lot of good. The good news is that
a new administration is about to begin, with many leadership appoint-
ments yet to be made. Trent Lott’s loss could be President-elect Bush’s
gain. The new administration will need respected nominees who will
get a fair hearing in the evenly split Senate. “Slade was not just a member
of the club, Slade was an admired member,” Mr. Lott told me. “I think he
would be overwhelmingly favorably received for any position. Solicitor
general—he’s got the demeanor, the experience. He could be an attorney
general, a Supreme Court justice.”
Maybe that’s what they were saying Thursday morning and afternoon
in the Senate.^4If that’s what they were saying, Bush and his transition team weren’t
listening.