Tom Coburn Leaves a Lonely Place Lonelier - Bloomberg

Tom Coburn Leaves a Lonely Place Lonelier - Margaret Carlson - Bloomberg

"In the Senate, Coburn pushed the sharpened-pencil auditors at the General Accounting Office to find duplication, fraud, waste and abuse in government. This quest wasn't merely a rhetorical weapon; he acted because no one else was really digging and because both sides were on the take. Critics scoffed at the small-bore savings, which seemed to overlook the goodies enjoyed by such Republican allies as investment bankers and oil companies. Still, just because you can't get at everything doesn't mean you don't get at something. You have to start somewhere....

"Reporters don't get to choose the senators they cover, but you can choose who you ask over to dinner. He was the most ego-free, funny and sensible person you could meet -- and not just by the low standards of the current Congress. It helped that he was a country doctor from Muskogee (4,000 babies delivered) and that he preferred to be called Dr. Coburn. He admitted that his mother-in-law, Mamie, liked my political positions better than he did and he asked me to write her a note. When a new senator, Democrat or Republican, arrived in town, Coburn always stopped by for a visit because, he said, Washington is such "a lonely place." Come the end of the month, it will be even more so.