Frank Lautenberg

[MBS]

7. Charlie Pierce on Lautenberg

a little OT, but it gets to a big reason why his passing will leave such a hole in the Senate
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/RIP_Frank_Lautenberg

He had some big, clanging brass ones, showing up in a wheelchair to cast a vote on the gun-control bill a while back and filing a bill for background checks on the sale of explosive powders in the immediate aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, and never backing down from any fight, particularly on environmental issues. But the one thing that struck me was the fact that he was the last World War II veteran left in the Senate. . . The one thing about the World War II generation . . .was that, by and large, they were the children of the Depression, too. Frank Lautenberg was the son of a millworker and the son fought a war and made himself a millionaire. Frank Lautenberg was a child of the Depression, and one of the last of them in the Senate, too. and that, I believe, made all the difference.