On long time Congressional figures, I always have to consider this phrase… cliche ridden purple prose:

His 30-term career not only mirrors the arc of 20th century history,

Skip forward to this, and it is more of the same:

Mr. Dingell has earned himself foes and friends and watched his cherished Congress change from the days when committee chairmen held sway to a body overrun with partisan discord and strife.

All right.  Electoral History for the taking.  For a man who has been in office for, it is said, more than 25 percent of the institution’s history.

This is the man Bill Maher had in mind, along with Lautenberg, with this editorial about the age of Congress.  The “cold dead hands” routine, and “Congressman for Life” — “We love this man in this district!”.  No, I do think Dingell should have lost a primary a decade ago.  Somewhere where the biography of the man turns from his record of achievement to a poetic musing on a changing America.

At least with Lautenberg there is a sense of “Best the Democrats can do for election”.

The main thing about John Dingell… is to muse about the oft heard remarks on Fidel Castro.  When his supporters would tick off a list of American Presidents he survived.  And, granted, the early ones had in for him for assassination hopes, but with Dingell it is a ticking off of “International Pariahs” and dictators he survived.  Say, for instance… the term limited  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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