Posted on 10/26/2002 3:57:54 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON - Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Minnesota liberal who was locked in one of the tightest reelection contests in the country, died Friday with his wife and daughter, three aides and two pilots in a plane crash in northern Minnesota. Continues.
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Tragedy in Eveleth
As a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, there were few issues -- very few issues -- Minnesota's Paul Wellstone and I would see eye-to-eye on, but the Senate's most unabashed liberal, I hasten to say, was more than a worthy opponent.
Dubbed a "60s radical" by Mother Jones, the former Carleton College professor-turned-Senator was resolutely true to his beliefs, a liberal's liberal, tenaciously championing often-times daringly unpopular causes and positions, heedless of the risks, politically. An example was his 'no' vote on a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq, the only Democrat locked in a tight race to do so. The measure earlier this month sailed through the Senate, 77-23. Another was his vote against the hugely popular Welfare Reform Act of 1996, at the time again the only Democrat up for re-election casting a nay vote.
Indeed, the North Star State's senior Senator, who proudly bedecked his Senate offices with posters and pictures of Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy, was, in many ways, the very antithesis of the modern-day, phony-baloney Democrat Party. Sen. Wellstone eschewed poll-driven politics, he hated the two-faced, the devious, the insincere. Unlike most of his colleagues, he stood for something -- firmly, intently.
He delivered his speeches with the fervor and intensity, the ardor and zeal of a Sunday morning Baptist preacher. No-one slept when Wellstone spoke.
President Bush calls him "a man of deep convictions."
Scoring a stunning upset in 1990 against GOP Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, Professor Wellstone, whose old and decrepit green campaign bus became symbolic of his longshot bid, came to Washington loathing North Carolina's conservative Sen. Jesse Helms. Not long afterwards, the firebrand liberal was warmly singing his praises on the floor of the Senate.
It's why even his staunchest rivals have nothing but good things to say about Sen. Wellstone, who crossed the aisle only rarely, yet was always polite, decent, cordial, gracious, attentive. Wellstone, to borrow an oft-used cliche, could disagree without ever being disagreeable.
Times like these reminds us all how very fragile, how very precious, how very fleeting life truly is.
His doomed twin-engine plane crashed in a marshy, wooded area in northern Minnesota, tragically taking his life and that of his wife, Sheila, and his daughter, Marcia.
The world will be a lonelier place without them.
My heart goes out to David and Mark, Wellstone's two sons, and all his family and friends.
Anyway, that's...
My two cents..
"JohnHuang2"
One thing I heard on C-SPAN Radio yesterday is that Wellstone told his family and friends after he voted against the Iraq resolution that he would probably lose the election as a result, and that he was pleasantly surprised when he went up in the polls after that vote. I suspect that, by making that vote, Wellstone was defying orders from Daschle, McAuliffe, and the Clintons. They would have had an interest in making an example of somebody who had defied their orders, and who was unreliable for their plans precisely because he was too principled a leftist.
Do we know whether the friend's father whose funeral the Wellstones were flying to attend died a natural death?
But let's not forget who Wellstone's political mentor was. That would be another ultra liberal. Edward "FatTeddy" Kennedy. I just had to throw that in.
After my own experience Thursday morning while I was driving on the freeway, this statement really hits home.
I was driving in the left lane of the freeway and all of a sudden I saw a car coming at me going the wrong direction on the freeway. My first reaction was to get over in the other lane, but there was a car next to me. So I pulled left to avoid that vehicle then pulled right again to avoid the head on car. Eventually in my manuvering to avoid cars my car started to fish tail and I no longer had control. The car spun around and finally I hit the cement divider.
When I knew I no longer had control I closed my eyes and said "Lord it is in your hands." At that moment I no longer feared what was happening.
My husband was in the passenger seat and we both came out of it all in one piece.
My prayers are with the Wellstone family for the loss of their loved ones.
Right now the fruitcakes over at D.U. are speculating that the Republicans did it.
Planes crash all the time and it's usually due to pilot error. Conspiracy mongering is unnecessary.
-ccm
Sorry about that, me neither(except for Flight Simulator)so I may be wrong here. The wx was explained previously but basically while the visibility was so-so(5 miles)the base of the clouds at the time were close to minimums(instrument chart link in my previous post: the bottom-right of each instrument approach chart shows, in parenthesis, cloud base height and visiblity allowed for that particular approach, (ex. 500-1 1/4). The wx at the time was approximately 400-5, though it is an automated observation and actual conditions could have been better or worse, also temps were close to the freezing mark and the light snow could have briefly turned into a heavier squall reducing visibility further.
If he's trying to maintain visual contact with the runway, 400 ft. above the ground, in and out of clouds\snow. there isn't much margin for error, and ice ain't nice either, especially if the aircraft is loaded close to max. A "risky scheme" flying in those conditions.
Also a report I heard earlier today stated that no CVR was installed in the plane, the CVR would be the only record of the possible deception recording the dismay of the pilots at the moment of realization.
Again I freely admit this is most likely another lame-brained conspiracy theory but I just don't trust the Dims in their frightening zeal to hold on to power, anyone who wants to be in power that much should never ever be allowed to have it!!
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