Senator Jay Rockefeller Needs To Man Up

In a series of extremely good posts, emptywheel (Marcy Wheeler) at The Next Hurrah discusses the unfortunate, yet consistent, tendencies of Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence (SSCI), to turn into a shrinking violet at critical moments when the chips are down. Instead of quoting and retelling the stories here, I am going to link to the four pieces emptywheel has done and urge everyone here to read them in their entirety. This is important stuff and Ms. Wheel does a remarkable job with it. Again, take the time to click the links and read the material. On the other side of the links, I will relate a somewhat interesting little story from my past involving Sen. Rockefeller.

The Wilson SSCI Part One: Or, Why I Want a New SSCI Chair

The Wilson SSCI Part Two: Or, Kneecapping Waxman

The Wilson SSCI Part Three: Or, Cheney's Black Hole

How's that Search for a New SSCI Chair Going, John Ashcroft Testimony Edition

Now, for my little story. In 1981-1982, I was living in Tucson Arizona and attending graduate school at the University of Arizona (organic chemistry and physics for those thinking I am solely a legal imbecile). While in Tucson, I worked for Mo Udall and his re-election campaign. My mother had long been friends with Mo and his brother Stewart, and there were several very hot girls working on the local portion of the campaign, so I eagerly signed on. At any rate, our big be all to end all fundraiser before the election was a tribute dinner for Mo, honoring his twentieth year in Congress, to be held at the DoubleTree Resort in Tucson. The named guests headlining this gala event were Robert Redford and, wait for it,.... an up and coming Democratic star to be, the young Governor of West Virginia, Jay Rockefeller. I still have to this day, somewhere in a box, souvenir t-shirts with the silk screened likeness of Mo in the middle and Redford on one side and Rockefeller on the other. Redford and Mo consumed most of the oxygen the entire day, but they kept trying with every ounce of energy to put Rockefeller on an even plane, because the grooming had already begun for his Senate run two years later. This night was to be part of Rockefeller's national coming out in anticipation of the Senate run. I, along with several of my friends, had a chance to really talk to Rockefeller during a couple of different points in the day, because everything concentrated on Redford and Mo no matter what we did. Rockefeller was literally left alone a couple of times, and that is when we would go over. At any rate, the consensus opinion among all of us was "man, this is the nicest and brightest guy, but what a fucking milquetoast". Some things, apparently, never change.