Posted on 05/10/2006 1:42:45 AM PDT by edpc
MARYLAND'S Democratic attorney general, J. Joseph Curran Jr., who over the weekend revealed his plans to retire after a political career spanning nearly half a century, is the sort of public servant who gives old-fashioned liberalism a good name.
Many of the stands he championed -- racial tolerance, gun control, abortion rights, consumer protection -- are Democratic Party orthodoxy today. That wasn't so in all cases several decades ago when Mr. Curran, then a state lawmaker, first embraced them. In 1967, for instance, when he advocated open-housing laws requiring colorblind home sales, his house in Baltimore was picketed. A year later, his parish priest denounced him from the pulpit after he pushed laws to ease access to abortions. (Mr. Curran carried the precinct anyway.) By virtue of his gutsiness, class and abiding civility, Mr. Curran made his mark as a lion of Maryland politics. Little wonder that when he announced at a rally Monday that he would call it quits, some supporters held up signs pleading for "40 More Years."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
the sort of public servant who gives old-fashioned liberalism a good name
Many here will remember Joe Curran's anti-gun screed A Farewell To Arms. For those who do not, here is a FR posting from 2001.
Except for Governor Ehrlich and Lt-Guv (and hopefully soon-to-be Senator Michael Steele) Maryland has been such a one-party state for so long it has progressed beyond any sort of recognizable leftism and is, instead, more akin to a mafia family: ruled by warring families preying on the people. Before the Curran/O'Malley clan we had the D’Alesandro clan, father Tom and son Tom, both mayors of Baltimore - and daughter Nancy Pelosi.
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