I was sorry to see my old friend, former Congressman Jennifer Dunn, dead at age 66 of a pulmonary embolism.

I knew Jennifer all the way back to my days at Harvard College when she was married to my classmate, Dennis Dunn.

We always had a cordial and friendly relationship, even though we disagreed on a number of issues. She was a lovely person.

Jennifer was the first woman to chair the Washington State Republican Party, the first freshman woman to win a place in the House Republican leadership team, and the highest ranking Republican woman in the GOP leadership as Vice Chairman of the conference. She served on the Ways and Means Committee, and was Vice Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. She helped run three Republican National Conventions.

Jennifer is survived by her husband, Keith Thomson, whom she married in 2003, her sons, Bryant Dunn, Reagan Dunn, and Angus Thomson, and two grandchildren.

Jennifer was as beautiful as she was bright.

She will be missed.

Senator John Warner was a hero to The Washington Post, as witness their farewell tribute to him in the edition of Saturday, September 1, but Warner was no hero to conservatives. He betrayed Ollie North when Ollie was running for the U.S. Senate. He betrayed Mike Farris when Mike was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. He betrayed Robert Bork when he voted against his confirmation. He betrayed General Jack Singlaub (USA-Ret.) when he refused to meet with General Singlaub and me to discuss events in Panama, and I could list a great many other things where he behaved despicably toward conservatives.

Warner was a blow-dried fop who is now trying to help Left-wing Republican Tom Davis succeed him in the Senate.

The Washington Post farewell article (not an editorial) carried the headline "Senator Is Widely Hailed For Vision, Immunity to Politics".

"[T]here was no question that he would be one of the few Republicans to vote against Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987, that he would actively campaign against Republican Oliver L. North in 1994 when North ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate from Virginia, and that, as the horrors of Abu Ghraib came to light, he would take on the Bush administration."

Another article in The Washington Post (9/1/07) stated: "Mr. Warner is a conservative but hardly an ideologue, and he has repeatedly infuriated his party’s strident right-wingers — by standing against the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987, by opposing the leadership of Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) in the Senate, and, in 1994, by repudiating Oliver L. North’s Senate candidacy in Virginia. Many Virginia Republicans saw him as a heretic — a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Mr. Warner saw himself as more committed to principle than party. He lacked any fixed worldview or guiding political philosophy."

All of which goes to show you that, if you sell out those who elect you, you can get a good press in Washington, D.C.

D. James Kennedy gave some of the most brilliant, knowledgeable, and Constitutionally correct sermons of any pastor in my lifetime.

Ill health has plagued him for several years, and he is now gone to be with His Maker.

I am grateful for the kindness and friendship which Dr. Kennedy always showed me.

He was one of the real founders and leaders of the Christian Right.