Here's a senator who always seemed perfectly capable of seeing through Bill Clinton, even if he never said anything out loud, and who now, at the end of a distinguished tenure, manages to sound like just another party hack. Never underestimate the corrosive influence of our poll-produced president, not when he can reduce the Senate's best stump speaker to this sort of thing. Dale Bumpers may not be a Robert Byrd in his prime, and he's certainly not a Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a thinker, but the good senator is a lot better than this gratuitous bow to a deeply shallow president makes him sound. What a pity Dale Bumpers' fine valedictory had to be marred by the usual Clinton apologetics. Men are known in history by what they choose not to say, too.
Silence still gives consent.
Yes, what a pity Dale Bumpers did not raise his valedictory to a higher level than mere showmanship, instead of just echoing the party line. Then his last hurrah would have been more than entertaining. It would have been educational. It would have been elevating. And it would have spoken so well of Arkansas.