>>The days of a Mendel Rivers in the Democratic party are long gone.
That would seem to be true. Are you posting this at random around FR, or did you mean it to have relevance to my post?
My apologies, evidently my remark was too cryptic.
Mendel Rivers was a deeply patriotic Democrat who chaired the House Armed Services Committee.
My point was that there are no Democrats of this stripe in positions of power in the incoming Congress. Instead, their new leadership is well-supplied from the ranks of the Progressive Caucus, the most leftwing portion of the party. Pelosi, Conyers, and Rangel are all members. McKinney and Abercrombie are members who serve on the Armed Services Committee. If Ike Skelton is given this chairmanship, he won't be as bad as having Abercrombie or McKinney, but I don't think we will like what he does do.