As a newspaper, we take seriously our ethical obligation to objectivity in presenting the news, to avoid taking sides in news columns about community, religious, political and many other issues.
But there are exceptions.
Pat Schroeder, for example. We simply cannot deny that we liked her. And respected her.
We are far from alone. The former Colorado congresswoman attracted admiration and respect like a magnet, from any number of communities.
The Jewish community was one of them. Schroeder consistently stood side-by-side with Jews, in supporting Israel, in fighting anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish discrimination, in expressing — and practicing — solidarity with Soviet Jewry during the most dire period of that community’s struggle for freedom. She visited refuseniks in their Russian homes and gathering places, going so far on one memorable occasion as to smuggle cassette tapes of their testimonies out of the USSR, not only risking potential arrest and creating an international row, but demonstrating her novel way of doing things.
Another was the feminist movement, of which Schroeder was a first generation leader and activist, helping transfer the movement off the streets and campuses into the halls of the US Capitol and hands-on legislation.
Here, too, her creativity and gift for language were on display. Her quote that she had both a uterus and a brain, and that she was fully capable of using both, became one of the women’s movement’s most lasting and effective slogans.
As a politician, she was proudly, bravely and unapologetically liberal, a fact that endeared her to those of similar persuasions and frequently annoyed those of a more conservative bent, who still remember her 1983 characterization of Ronald Reagan as the “Teflon president,” yet another example of her capacity for slogans that translated sensitive and complex subjects into compact, operative and subtly humorous nuggets.
Yet, both Democrats and many Republicans respected Schroeder, and not just because the ideal of political bipartisanship in the 1970s and 1980s was not as taboo a concept as it has sadly become today. She earned their respect, and that of her Denver constituency, for her intelligence, her honesty, her work ethic and the personal integrity she brought to the issues she addressed.
We will miss all of those attributes, no less than the warm and personal touch that she brought to her work, perhaps best illustrated by the countless notes she wrote to her friends, colleagues and constituents, each of them adorned with a signature, invariably complete with a huge letter “P” and a smiley face.
Most of all, we’ll miss her menschlichkeit, a term which we realize is not often used to describe non-Jews and, according to Yiddish custom, is usually reserved for men, not women.
But like our professional objectivity, there are exceptions to the rule. This is one of them.
Pat Schroeder was most definitely a mensch.
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