Not many details as yet:

The aide said the body of the 68-year-old Republican was found by staff members who went to his apartment after he failed to show up for work. There was no immediate word on the cause of his death. Gillmor's office did not respond to a reporter's call.

Gillmor, who represented Ohio's 5th District in the Bowling Green area of the state, was first elected to Congress in 1988

Gillmor was a fairly staunch conservative on most issues. Amazingly, his Wikipedia page already has news of his death posted.

Gillmor served in the Judge Advocates corp in the Air Force and was a lawyer after he resigned his commission. He served on several top committees in the House.

Former President George H.W. Bush described her perfectly: he said that Lady Bird Johnson had "the grace and the elegance and the decency and sincerity that you would hope for in the White House."

Today, Lady Bird Johnson died. She will always be remembered as a wonderful first lady.

It could not have been easy for her to follow Jacqueline Kennedy. However, she did it well.

She beautified Washington, D.C with the plantings of trees and flowers. She helped to move billboards away from the highways. With a great deal of courage, she traveled the South in support of the Civil Rights Act.

Her and Lyndon Johnson were a team. They worked together and she was willing to stand in his shadow. She provided a wonderful example for others to emulate.

Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas died this evening after battling Leukemia since November 2006. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family. I am sure Senator Thomas' passing will be mourned by the people of Wyoming and their leadership. He was re-elected this past November with over 70 percent of the vote. From AP:

Thomas was a low-key lawmaker who reliably represented the interests of his conservative state, often becoming involved in public lands issues. He worked in behind-the-scenes posts to oversee national parks, including Yellowstone in Wyoming.

He was also an advocate for domestic energy and minerals production. He worked to protect Wyoming's mining industry from foreign competition and backed efforts to get a federally funded coal gasification plant built in the state.

The AP article also mentions that Wyoming mandates a replacement from the same political party. The Senate balance will not be altered but there will be a general election for the remainder of the term in November 2008.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell has died, and Bob and Susannah examine his impact on the United States in this cartoon. The NPR episode Susannah references can be found here.

Larry Flynt writes an unlikely article in the LA Times that describes the friendship between him and the late Jerry Falwell:

The truth is, the reverend and I had a lot in common. He was from Virginia, and I was from Kentucky. His father had been a bootlegger, and I had been one too in my 20s before I went into the Navy. We steered our conversations away from politics, but religion was within bounds. He wanted to save me and was determined to get me out of "the business."
...
I'll never admire him for his views or his opinions. To this day, I'm not sure if his television embrace was meant to mend fences, to show himself to the public as a generous and forgiving preacher or merely to make me uneasy, but the ultimate result was one I never expected and was just as shocking a turn to me as was winning that famous Supreme Court case: We became friends.

He includes the story about berating Falwell for the Ellen "Degenerate" comment and about a certain Teletubby character being gay. These are definite low points for Falwell, and deservedly so. But when you think about it for a second it doesn't seem that strange at all that they should become friends. As a good Christian, it would have been immoral for Jerry Falwell to harbor any sort of bitterness and animosity in his heart for anyone, and that includes Flynt. At some point, he must have realized that and also that he had an opportunity to make amends and connect.

The lesson here for all of us is to remember that we are people despite being on the opposite ends of issues. Disagreement doesn't have to mean hate, animosity, and incivility. We can treat each other with respect while contending for our views. Falwell and Flynt showed us that politics doesn't mean you can't be friends.

One of the most polarizing figures in American politics has passed.

Jerry Falwell was a man who was very outspoken in his convictions and his opinions. He made inane statements that made him seem callous such as blaming 9/11 on homosexuals and other un-PC utterings. He stayed on the scene for a long while because he was a man that many Christians admired and conservative politicians lobbied for his backing.

Regardless of your thoughts on the man, he was revered and despised depending on which side of the political spectrum you asked (a great example of the hatred felt by the left can be found here). One thing for sure, we're not likely to see someone like him on the political stage again anytime soon.

John Edwards has scheduled what is being termed as a major campaign announcement at 12:00pm this afternoon. Preliminary indications lean towards an update on the health of his wife, who has battled breast cancer during the past few years. As campaign sources inform us that Mrs. Edwards just had a major follow-up appointment regarding her cancer treatment, this sounds ominous. If cancer has returned so quickly, that means treatment is going to have to be aggressive.

In turn, that could mean that John Edwards would put his campaign on hold, or even something more permanent, which would certainly be understandable and commendable. Cancer is a vicious, almost criminal and evil illness. It touched me. And as anyone who has experienced successful treatment knows, it could come back at any time. When it does, it does so with a vengeance. All of us hope for the best for the Edwards.

And that leads me to the second part of this post. My blogging friend and columnist Cathy Seipp lost her battle with cancer yesterday. Although she never smoked, or had any other unhealthy habits, she was struck with inoperable Stage 4A adenocarcinoma of the lung five years ago.

A gentleman by the name of Earl Mazo just passed away. He was a biographer of Richard Nixon and a political correspondent for the old New York Herald Tribune. He was also on top of what could have been one of the biggest political stories of the last century -- one that probably would have won him a Pulitzer. In short, he thought that John Kennedy had stolen the 1960 Presidential election from Nixon (primarily in Chicago and Texas.) Nowadays people think of JFK as an unbeatable political force -- but his election victory was actually quite narrow. From Mazo's obituary today:

On a reporter's tip, Mazo went to Chicago, obtained lists of voters in precincts that seemed shaky, and started checking their addresses.

"There was a cemetery where the names on the tombstones were registered and voted," he recalled. "I remember a house. It was completely gutted. There was nobody there. But there were 56 votes for Kennedy in that house."

...Mazo began writing what he and his editors envisioned as a 12-part series on election fraud. By mid-December 1960, he had published four installments, which were reprinted in papers across the country, including The Post.

This is not the first obituary to appear on this blog and I am sure that it will not be the last. As a graduate of Boston College, it would be hard not to recognize the life of this very wonderful man. On January 28, 2007, he died and left a wonderful legacy behind. Whether you supported him or not, it would be hard not to agree that he was an honest man.

He was dean of Boston College Law School and ended his career teaching at Georgetown University Law School. However, it was not teaching at law schools that made this man famous.

At the height of the Vietnam War, Fr Drinan did not like the decisions that were being made in Washington. In 1970, he ran against the Democratic Congressman, Philip Philbin and beat him. He served until 1981. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War who stood up and took on an incumbent. Times change and history repeats itself.

Though a priest, he voted in favor of abortion issues. He was opposed to abortion but stated; "its legality was a separate issue from its morality." This didn't make the Pope very happy and an edict was issued directing all priests to give up their political office. Father Drinan chose God over politics and he resigned as a Congressman. At about the same time, Fr. John McLaughlin, also a Jesuit, was told to resign his job as a writer and advisor aide to Richard Nixon. He did not resign and instead he gave up the priesthood. Today, he appears on the very successful McLaughlin Group.

We need more people like Father Robert Drinan in today's Congress.

Today, Bob Woodward published an article regarding an interview with Gerald Ford. As usual, his story is supported by tapes of the Ford interview and recordings made by Richard Nixon. Woodward found that the Ford-Nixon friendship went back to the 1940s. At the end of his presidency, Nixon felt that the only man he could trust was Gerald Ford.

The most interesting comment made by Ford was the reason he gave for the interview. Ford told Woodward:

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma,"

This comment seems to be at odds with Ford's position that the pardon was given in an attempt to heal the nation.

All of Ford's interview was "embargoed" until President Ford died.

Here's an illustrated appraisal of our 38th president...

This is outrageous. Harry Reid is the elected leader of the U.S. Senate and he can't delay his visit to Macchu Picchu for a former president?

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will miss the state funeral for former President Gerald Ford at the Capitol Rotunda on Saturday night, opting instead to lead a delegation to South America with an expected stop at the Machu Picchu Inca ruins.

Reid, D-Nev., left Wednesday afternoon from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland with a bipartisan group of five other senators, including Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the incoming assistant majority leader, for what has been described as a weeklong visit to Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

The group of senators included on this "crucial" junket includes Republicans as well, so this is bipartisan outrage. As Redstate.com says in a pointed post to Republican Senators Bob Bennett and Judd Gregg:

Gerald Ford is dead at 93, I agree partly with John Mullaney's assessment, but I disagree that Ford was a great president.

No one gets to the level of senator, vice president, and president without some extremely remarkable qualities and a ton of hard work. Gerald Ford was a great man. If he had personal failings, I never heard of them, and none of his political enemies did either. His life was a great one and he has nothing to be ashamed of on that score.

But let's be honest. His presidency was brief and unremarkable. The lowest points were the nomination of what was supposed to be a moderate -- John Paul Stevens who is still serving as the liberal leader of the supreme court.

Gerald Ford also refused to fight for military aid and air support that we had promised to South Vietnam during the peace negotiations. It was this type of aid that helped the South resist an invasion in 1973 (even after the US army was out). But when the North tried again in 1975 we washed our hands and left, resulting in the boat people refugees and millions dead in re-education camps. Under Ford, the USA became a faithless friend.

On the other hand, President Ford did a great service for the USA by losing in 1976 to Jimmy Carter, after winning narrowly in the primary against Reagan. This helped clear the field and setup the eventual Reagan victory in 1980. Which was the best thing to happen to US politics in the last fifty years. All thanks to Gerald Ford.

Gerald Ford, good and decent man, not a great president.

He worked his way up the ladder of political success. He served in the most difficult of times. At the age of 93 years old, President Gerald Ford has died and tonight I am sure that he is passing through the gates of heaven and shaking hands with all that he meets.

From the beginning, Ford did things differently. He was born Leslie King Jr. After his mother remarried, his name was changed to Gerald Rudolph Ford. He was a football star at the University of Michigan but that was only the beginning. In 1949, he was elected to Congress and in 1961 was named the Congressman's Congressman by his peers. He was the minority leader from 1965 to 1973. In 1973, he was selected by Richard Nixon to be vice president and the rest is history.

Ford worked to heal the nation. He pardoned Nixon. In addressing the problems regarding the Vietnam War he said, "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." These might be words for all of us to remember when the Iraq War comes to an end.

In what I believed was a courageous act, he pardoned Richard Nixon the only person to become the president of the United States. This pardon prevented Ford from being elected president.

He will forever be included in political trivia. He was the only person to become the president of the United States without having been elected Vice President or President. In November, he became the oldest living retired President of the U.S. President Ford should be remembered as not only a great President but also a great man. May he rest in peace.

Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former Democrat who turned Republican and eventually rose to the height U.S. Ambassador to the UN, died this week at age 80.

Ms. Kirkpatrick was a major political player at a crucial time in history when she and Maggie Thatcher were blazing a trail for women in politics. These two Conservative women saw the danger that the Soviet Union represented, and in concert with Ronald Reagan, hastened the demise of the oppressive Communist regime. Ms. Kirkpatrick was the John Bolton of her era, she saw back then that the UN was breaking and what it would become if it didn't reform. It didn't and it's now a mess.

She is mostly remembered for her amazing speech at the 1984 GOP convention is which she said the following:

When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.

Alas, we now have a "San Francisco Democrat" as Speaker of the House and the women who have succeeded Kirkpatrick on the world stage have been Hillary Clinton or Madeline Albright types who could never hope to fill Ms. Kirkpatrick's shoes.

The lefties couldn't resist taking their pot shots and showing their true colors.