Monday 02-20-12

He is someone that can be looked up to instead of some of these "athletes"

Editorial: John Glenn, endangered species

It was hard to take in Monday's 50th anniversary of John Glenn's historic space flight without feeling wistful.

Glenn, the fighter pilot turned astronaut turned U.S. senator, made his name in the types of bold national causes that now fall victim to petty squabbling. He fought fascism in World War II and communism in the Korean War before thrilling the nation as the first American to orbit the Earth.

After his space exploits, Glenn became the type of politician that today seems all but extinct. He eschewed bombast and invective in favor of getting things done in the U.S. Senate, where he served as a Democrat from Ohio and showed a willingness to break from party orthodoxy from time to time to position himself as a centrist.

No-nonsense from the beginning, Glenn was the straight arrow from small town Ohio in a Mercury Seven field of military aviators known for their swagger, fast cars and and purposeful partying. He was devoted to wife Annie, the high school sweetheart to whom he has been married for 69 years. In the Senate, he was a work horse among the show horses. In 1998, at age 77, he became the oldest person to fly in space, aboard the shuttle Discovery.

On Monday, Glenn, now 90, was honored at Ohio State University and chatted via video link with the crew of the International Space Station. Commander Dan Burbank said Glenn "paved the way for America to become a space power, and to go to the moon."

Today, it's hard to see what peaceful endeavor might unite Americans the way the space race with the Soviet Union did in the 1960s. Energy independence perhaps — a worthy goal that, like the moon program, could create a profound sense of national achievement. But it's not likely to be solved by a Congress barely able to agree that government shouldn't default on its debts. Nor is it prone to solution in just eight years — the eye-popping timetable John F. Kennedy set for the United States to go from ineptly earthbound to the moon.

The list of large-scale, festering problems that the nation faces now can be addressed only by leaders with vision and common purpose. That would take more people like Glenn, who do not confuse patriotism and partisanship.

That would also take a great overarching national cause — like what Glenn felt, indeed what the whole country felt, a half-century ago, when he climbed into a tiny capsule called Friendship 7.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story/2012-02-20/John-Glenn-50th-anniversary/53181350/1