– The funeral service for Sen. Paul Wellstone commanded thousands of Democratic activists and faithful from throughout Minnesota and beyond. Many Republican commentators found it shocking that the services turned into a thinly disguised political rally for his not-then-yet- announced replacement, former Sen. Fritz Mondale.
Yet is it fair to blame the Democrats? Really, what else could have been
expected? Democrats are today primarily composed of people who see society as nothing but politics, who see the world through politics- colored glasses. You cannot expect to gather thousands
of such people together and not have a political rally. It is their raison d’etre.
At the service, some Wellstone epigrams were read aloud. One in particular caught my ear: “Politics is the process by which people’s lives are improved.” I’m assuming Wellstone’s friends went out of their way to choose his most sagacious insights for the crowd. It made me think, which is sadder: the life of someone cut down unexpectedly in his prime at age 58; or the fact that a person can teach political science at the university level, spend twelve years as a senator in D.C., and still possess such a sophomoric understanding of political power.
