Birch Bayh Evan Bayh

I've been a little newsie lately. I think that means I'll have a big stretch of fluffy pop culture soon. Might as well get it in while I'm interested. Anyway, again in the NYT , there's an article comparing two generations of Democrats. Among others, this includes current IN senator Evan Bayh and his father former IN senator Birch Bayh. I find Evan Bayh frustrating for all the reasons the article cites. He thinks liberal is a bad word. He votes as a centrist. He used to wear a Geraldo Rivera mustache. It makes me sad because Birch Bayh was so awesome. I've been reading Congressional Testimony debating whether to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1970. Birch Bayh was the sponsor and he mf rocked. He was reasonable, patient, even-handed, and unabashedly supportive of the ERA. Here's a little Birch Bayh from those hearings:

"We must recognize the enormous effort that is going to be required to be successful. I don’t mean just passing a slip of paper that happens to be appended, whether it is the 26th, 27th, or 28th amendment to the Constitution, but ultimately implementing this at the marketplace, job marketplace, in the court, and at the law office where contracts are written or where divorce proceedings are consummated, I just cannot see how we are really going to escape the need for maximum effort to pursue litigation in the courts, whether it is a constitutional amendment or statute to the 1964 voting rights statute."

Original NYT article: (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/washington/14sons.html)