There's a passage in a non-political book called "Left for Dead" by Beck Weathers

[ribrepin]

Beck Weathers is the guy is who was so badly frost bitten on Mount Everest in 1996. There's an interesting passage in the book written by his wife and her friends regarding appealing to then governor of Texas to help get her husband off the mountain.

Linda Gravelle: I called him on his private line in Austen and got his daughter, Jenna. I said "I need to talk to your dad." She said, "Well, He's jogging" or something like that. I told her what had happened, and that it was very important he call me back.

He did, and told me that this was a federal matter, that he could not deal with it on the state level. I said "I cannot believe you! This is someone you know and you won't even help me!

I was pretty mad. We've seen him since, and the subject does not come up.

Then somebody said, "We need to get a Democrat involved in this."

Cappy and Janie McGarr are friends of ours who are close to Tom Daschle, the minority leader in the Senate. They contacted him at home that morning. Daschle contacted the State Department, which contacted the embassy in Kathmandu. which assigned David Schensted to the matter, which resulted in Madan K.C. risking his life to save Beck's.

The book was published in April of 2000. These people all live in North Dallas and I wonder what they think now. Daschle was booted from the Senate and Bush who couldn't be bothered to make a few phone calls to save the life of one of his supporters life.