On the passing of George McGovern

If memory serves, I met this man when he made a stop at Indiana University Northwest. I was nearing the end of my college career and it was an evening event. He was there during the turmoil of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

McGovern was probably a little to the left of me at that time in my life. I considered myself a left-leaning moderate: to the left on social issues, to the center on economic issues, and a deficit hawk. I remember him being an articulate, honorable and decent man who was spending his evening addressing us. Most of us in attendance had little idea who he was. He was a footnote – the unfortunate reason for Watergate.

What I do remember from that evening were a pair of vivid moments of local partisans trying to score political points at McGovern’s expense. The first was some Gingrich Republican who tried to get McGovern to effectively denounce Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky matter, boldly declaring it worse than Watergate. Umm, Clinton only hazarded his presidency. Nixon hazarded the republic. The second was a political science professor who tried to get McGovern to admit, in the most roundabout way possible, that liberalism died because of him. He took McGovern’s answer as a “Yes.”

Like my experience in listening to Ralph Nader’s lecture at Indiana University in Bloomington years later, I got the sense of a man who was better than the politics of his day. I remember a man with intellect to spare. I remember an honorable man who believed in what he stood for. And that was plenty good enough for me.