Warren B. Rudman, New Hampshire Senator, Dies at 82 - NYTimes.com

Senator Warren Rudman (R-N.H.)
with Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine)

Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) was half of Gramm-Rudman - the Reagan budget bill that sharply cut social spending.  He was a founder of the deficit hawk Concord Coalition.  I was strongly opposed to both.  I am Keynesian in economics and social democratic in social policy.  But there is a yin and a yang, and Warren Rudman was definitely a yang. And it gave him the guts to stand up to the right when they were celebrating the rogue White House operative Oliver North, and when he put forward his successor as New Hampshire Attorney General David Souter for the Supreme Court. 
Justice Souter proved to be one of the most supple thinkers to grace the court.  He was a steady voice against the bitter extremism of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - two powerful and wrong-headed intellects given to hyperbole.
Rudman was a New England Republican - a member of the party of Lincoln, the kind of person  we need to restore genuine bi-partisanship - the kind in which people actually debate and find ways to agree without either becoming the other. - GWC
Warren B. Rudman, New Hampshire Senator, Dies at 82 - NYTimes.com:

“The American people have a right to be wrong,” Senator Rudman told Colonel North. “And what Ronald Reagan thinks or what Oliver North thinks or what anybody else thinks matters not a whit. There comes a point when the views of the American people have to be heard.”¶

For all his work on fiscal and national security issues, Mr. Rudman said he regarded his role in the selection of David H. Souter for the Supreme Court as his proudest achievement.

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