The Old Guard

Tonight, I had the good fortune to renew my acquaintance with former Congressman Bob Clement who I had initially met on a tour of Cumberland College (now University) where he was serving as president in the mid-1980s. Clement made a run for mayor of Nashville in the last election cycle, where unfortunately he was defeated by Karl Dean. Clement sprang from the line of honorable Democrats, men like tax-cutter John F. Kennedy who was a hawk on defense and Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a staunch anti-Communist who always stood for the refusenik prisoners of conscience held by the Soviet Union. These strong Democrats and many of their Southern colleagues were good stewards of the taxpayers' money, recognizing just how hard families had worked to earn it. I sense that had Clement won the mayorship, he would have thought long and hard before embarking on Nashville's convention center project, unlike the free spender who took the office who did not seem concerned about a billion dollar expense in the midst of a nationwide recession. Like many Democrats today in Washington, our mayor, Karl Dean evidently thinks a billion dollars 'tis but a trifle. I was glad to meet Bob Clement again- it is just a shame I could not call him Mr. Mayor.