Senator John Warner, World War II and Korean War veteran, former Secretary of the Navy and Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia since 1979, announced Friday that he will retire from the Senate at the end of this term. You may not know that, because CNN covered about half of his announcement before switching to a bit of commentary then dropping the story almost entirely (Blitzer did a phone interview with the Senator later in the day). I couldn't find it at all on the other 'news' channels (I didn't check Fox). I guess without the scandal that surrounds Senator Craig's exit, CNN didn't feel there was a need to spend a bit of time reflecting on his life of service, indeed, letting him finish his sentence, before cutting to something a bit juicier.

Although Warner's retirement is good news considering there's a pretty decent chance of a Dem successor, I can't help but feel a little saddened by the lack of coverage and respect paid by the traditional media after such a long and respected career in the Senate.

Don't get me wrong. I disagree with Senator Warner most of the time, especially on his insistence to stick with Bush on Iraq through most of the war and occupation. Even now I find his opposition to the present course pretty weak.

But, as beachmom reminds us her diary, and as we see in this colloquy between Senator Warner and Senator Kerry during the debate on the Kerry/Feingold amendment in June, 2006, he behaved in a manner befitting the rich tradition of the Senate. When he spoke, you could be pretty sure that, although he didn't stray far from the party line, he wouldn't resort to calling people 'cut and run defeatocrats'. He was wrong on Iraq, but he was a gentleman who didn't resort to attacks and distortions to make his case.

And if you don't know how uncommon that was during the 109th Republican congress, you weren't watching enough C-SPAN.

Not enough? Maybe not. But it was something.