At the end of the day...at the end of the work week, once you have returned home and scraped off the barnacles...you ain't shit unless you can roast a chicken and properly decant a bottle of red. At the end of the day, it is almost entirely about the little things.
The little things.
Funny how a little thing can take you down.
See I have developed a severe case
of cognitive dissonance this week.
He was...well not quite a hero of mine, but I held equal parts respect and awe for the man. In my eyes he was the modern-day Henry Clay. I remember the times he would take control of the Senate well, screaming at his colleagues...imploring them to vote their conscience, demanding that just once they could see fit to, if not completely cast off the shackles of party loyalties, at least loosen them long enough to stand up long enough to vote what they knew in their hearts were right.
I remember the time he fought against bogus information being introduced into the record, with him fighting for a minutes time...long enough to accurately, if not parliamentarily acceptably, call the speakers bluff, and assert them as the lying liars that they were.
Funny how the little things can drag a good man down. We needed him in the Senate. We needed him like a meadow needs the occasional gust of cool, clean air. But he took himself down. And in a moment of sheer stupidity, he snapped the self portrait heard around the world. We are all the losers for it. Because at the end of the day, he was a clarion of truth, a breathe of fresh air in a very polluted atmosphere...and a man who stood up for what he believed. And that was no little thing.