Will be missed. Cut of a cloth that no longer exists. He was a man who stood on principle and not party lines.

"He was a man who stood on principle and not party lines."

On a couple of things, sure. In general he was a pork barrel king who was part of what was wrong (and still wrong) about Washington DC. Apparently he felt that he couldn't get re-elected unless he sent mega millions back here for things that got named after him.

My favorite example is the courthouse. As pointed out by Willy Week once, in those small bills that allowed clear-cutting of portions of Federal forestland, Hatfield would put in amendments that prevented any objecting citizen to have the usual automatic day in court to convince a judge that the particular clear-cut should not be permitted. So the man who prevented people from having their day in court got a courthouse named after him. Nice.

Bob Tiernan
NE Portland

The Mark O. Hatfield Library at Willamette is dedicated to him, along with Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center. Other namesakes include the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland; Hatfield Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University; the RIP Mr. Hatfield.

P.S. Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness, Mark O. Hatfield Institute for International Understanding at Southwestern Oregon Community College; Hatfield Government Center station at the western terminus of the MAX Blue Line light rail; Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland; the Mark Hatfield trailhead at the western end of the Columbia River Highway State Trail in the Columbia River Gorge; and the Mark Hatfield Award for clinical research in Alzheimer's disease.

Wow! My previous post must have merged with a post from someone else? Mine started with 'RIP Mr. Hatfield.'

As a small state with little political power, many of us welcomed the bacon that Hatfield sent home. Remember, this was in the days of Scoop Jackson and Warren Magnuson who 'delivered the goods' to our neighbors. And there was grumbling about what has Hatfield brought home? And then he was in a position as head of Appropriations to do just that.

None of us is perfect. Mark Hatfield was a man of conscience and whose integrity and statesmanship are something sorely lacking today. Look no further than the Portland City Council.

Would that we had more Mark O Hatfields today.

Hatfield had a hard time saying "no" to the clear cut loggers otherwise he represented Oregon very well for decades and yes, he brought federal dollars BACK to Oregon.

Hatfield also made sure his wife's felony drunken driving accident with bodily injury to another person just disappeared with no legal consequences..... just another politican in my book...

Tess:

As a small state with little political power, many of us welcomed the bacon that Hatfield sent home. Remember, this was in the days of Scoop Jackson and Warren Magnuson who 'delivered the goods' to our neighbors."

Sorry, but I'm not inot the "but they did it, too" kind of rationalization.

After all, look where it got us.

Look where it got the whole country.

Bob Tiernan
NE Portland

Bob, I'm just saying that it was a different time, and it was. We were happy to receive what he helped bring to our state, especially since this is exactly how things were done and we were always on the short-end. Not justifying it - just saying that it was the kosher way of doing things at that time, and as a small state with little political clout, we always were on the short end. This was a way to return some of the fed dollars to the state.

Why do you seem so bitter towards Hatfield, Bob?

"This was a way to return some of the fed dollars to the state."

He was also one of the many who made sure that the people had lots of money taken from them to send to D.C. in the first place. Any money that's sent back for anything that has nothing to do with governing is money that should not have been in D.C. to begin with.

Bob T.
NE Portland