Lloyd Bentsen RIP

He was also one of the more reprehensible Democratic collaborators in the Reagan Revolution.

I knew that this would be a Ned thread.

I just saw this on the wire and my immediate reaction was "He wasn't dead already?" Poor guy had been in ill health for a long time. I can't remember what the occasion was, but I saw him in a wheelchair and an oxygen tank onstage with Clinton or someone in the last year or so.

In hindsight, it's absolutely ridiculous that Dukakis picked a Texan senator as his running mate to mimic the JFK/LBJ pattern. Funny how geography doesn't really come into play anymore in regard to that. Clinton/Gore came from neighboring states. Bush/Cheney come from confirmed red states (some would even say from the same red state.)

I've always wondered if Treasury secretaries get the same kick that I would get were my signature to appear on every single paper currency issued by the U.S. government. I mean, Jackson gets facetime on the twenty, but Lloyd Bentsen's name was on every bill there for awhile (FIRST and LAST.)

In the 1970 Senate elections, many southern Democrats were challenged by new friskey Republican "silent majority" candidates. You had one Al Gore, Sr. being defeated by Bill Brock in Tennessee. But Texan Senator and Democrat Lloyd Bentsen held his own against his Republican challenger. That challenger, of course, being George H.W. Bush.

Oh, that is so sad. I still enjoy viewing the infamous 1988 v-p debate where he permanently destroyed Dan Quayle whenever they put it on C-Span. I know virtually nothing else about the man's life, but that one thing has cheered me on many an occasion...

I always kinda liked the guy - even before The Debate. I remember him from when he briefly ran for president in the 1976 election before bowing out and supporting Carter.

There's a hilarious clip of young first-term Rep. Bentsen in The Atomic Cafe where he rants against communism and urges people to petition congress for a resolution to nuke North Korea.

Plus any guy who took part in that scary Ploesti air raid in WWII is a badass in my book