On November 8th, 1996 just three days after Bob Dole got pasted by Bill Clinton for president, he walked on stage at the Late Show with David Letterman to a standing ovation. There has never been a politician just as comfortable and formidable marking up legislation as they are on late night TV. He joked that he was making $200 for the appearance and it was the first work he’d had in sometime. While staff and reporters knew Dole was a very funny man, it was a side voters rarely saw.
After politics, Dole would do commercials for Viagra and Visa and those close to him would applaud his new found freedom to be funny. But Dole’s legacy is complicated, some would say tainted, by his endorsement, twice, of Donald Trump for president.
So how do I, a native Kansan who is quite partial to his home state, feel about Bob Dole, a politician who I covered and, in all honesty, voted for a couple of times? You can’t help but be proud of a small-town guy who rose to the top of the political world and accomplished so much.
You have to admire his actions as a platoon leader on Hill 914 in Italy, actions that grievously wounded a young man who as an older man would remember his struggles as he helped pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
But I’m left to struggle with Dole's endorsement of Donald Trump. During election time, it’s clear the partisan politician ruled and the statesman took a back seat. Maybe nobody could have seen all of this turmoil coming. Or maybe it was just Dole being Dole. He joined the Republican team in 1950 and if that meant backing Nixon, Trump or whoever, well, that was Dole’s version of loyalty.
All I know for sure is that it’s very, very complicated.
