Missing Slade Gordon

I miss Slade Gorton on the political scene.

I wrote 122 columns about him during his 10 years in the state House, 12 years as attorney general and 18 years in the U.S. Senate.

So it took me a long time to read the book about him, “Slade Gorton, A Half Century In Politics” by John C. Hughes, not because it was boring, which it was not, but because I knew most of the people in it and had to read every single page.

I’m not going to review it. You can buy one for yourself like I did. I will recall some of my dealings with him. In fact, I didn’t have much hope for him at the beginning.

He was new a...