Politics: Pick a Future

We all mourn Fritz Hollings' decision to retire, but make no mistake: He was staring into Karl Rove's loaded gun, and he decided to step down, rather than face a withering attack like the one that brought down Max Cleland in Georgia last year. (Saxby Chambliss' ads included images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and then linked them to Max Cleland, creating the impression that Cleland is soft on national security. Cleland lost both legs and an arm in the Vietnam War, and voted for President Bush's blank check invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the Bush tax cut.) The disgusting tactics of the Republican Party election machine will scare off more elected officials (including some Republicans, like Peter Fitzgerald). Fritz Hollings can retire an elder statesman and enjoy his final years on this earth, or he can practically kill himself getting chased around South Carolina by a bloodthirsty mob of Rove-hired professional harassers, trying to raise enough money to defend himself from totally illegitimate attack ads.

As sad as it makes me to say it, he chose wisely.