They’re gonna bury Charlie Wilson next Tuesday — 25 years after doctors told him he would be dead in 18 months. But death would have to wait. Charlie had things to do.
For the uninitiated, Charlie was the colorful Lufkin-based Democratic congressman who served from 1973-97. He was not exactly a household name until Tom Hanks portrayed him in the 2007 film, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” complete with an imitation Texas accent that sounded as if it hailed straight from Birmingham, Ala.
The movies almost never get the accent right.
And Charlie had a thick one. I first met him in the early 1980s when I was a young newspaper editor living in East Texas, which he described as being “behind the Pine Curtain” with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
Still, there was a ring of truth to it. It was a nice way of saying they do things their own way in that neck of the woods.
Charlie was always quick with a quip. But it wasn’t until I briefly ventured outside of the news business many years later that I actually got to know him in any personal sense. I had landed a job as a legislative assistant in the Texas House district where he had once served. Charlie gave me a call to welcome me to the neighborhood. He had always been ingratiating and had known my grandfather who was a big deal in this state back when Cotton was King.
It seemed like an opportune time to seek a little advice about what to expect from my new duties at the Texas Capitol.
“So what should I know Charlie?” I asked him, anticipating some sage wisdom.
“You just need to know one thing, Preacher — suffer the fools with a smile,” he said with a chuckle.
Charlie had gotten in the habit of calling me “preacher” because I worked as a bi-vocational youth and music minister when I first met him. Suffice it to say everybody always asked me to lead the prayer at the Lions Club. He may have been a rogue, but he was an immensely likable one with a great sense of humor.
While I was a relative choir boy comparatively, I appreciated his candor and from that point on, I knew he was a guy that would shoot straight with me — and boy, his advice proved to be right on target.
I have known every flavor of politician — from presidents to constables and all points in between — but there was only one Charlie Wilson. So when our car columnist, T.Q. Jones — knowing I had a history there — called to tell me of Charlie’s passing, I spent much of the next couple of days thinking about him.
By now, you’ve probably heard stories of Charlie’s drinking and womanizing. I’d tell you it isn’t true, but then I’d be lying. In East Texas, no one who knew him called him “Rep. Wilson.” We called him “Goodtime Charlie.” And yes, he knew how to party — as well as make everyone around him relax and take life a little less seriously.
Don’t dismiss all that whoopee out-of-hand — it was a genuine political skill that spoke of his generation.
To the younger among us, society once looked on certain social ills — like drinking and smoking — differently. In those days, business frequently mixed with pleasure. It wasn’t unusual to see the “players” of the day, eat lunch, knock down a few cocktails, and go back to work. Offices everywhere — newsrooms included — were smoke-filled cancer factories and every boss and/or editor had a bottle of scotch in the desk.
Charlie was very much a product of this generation.
For the next several years, even after I returned to the newspaper business, I would see Charlie from time to time at some pine tree soirée we had to attend. There is even a high probability I may be guilty of having had a slight libation with Charlie — but in truth, by time I met him, he had slowed down considerably due to his heart condition. I recall him joking once that it was a good thing his ticker didn’t tell his liver the news. Still — at the end he would pay the price for his enormous appetites, undergoing heart transplant surgery.
Charlie was a Texas Democrat in the old sense of the phrase. Back in the day, virtually all the politicos in the state were Democrats. It was far more a matter than political necessity rather than dogmatic ideology.
While he may have been somewhat of an “international playboy” with a Jethro Bodine flair, it would have been a mistake to pass him off as the intellectually deficient, half-witted lightweight portrayed in the movie. He was far more complex, although it is possible he had developed more gravitas in later life. After all, he had been an institution for decades when I met him.
For his political enemies who could never quite get the sordid rumors to stick, they always failed to understand why Charlie was such a successful politician. At the root was his ability to speak the lingo of his constituents. And I, for one, believe it should not be forgotten that he was a fierce advocate for minorities and the poor. It wasn’t an act — it was at the root of his being. He came from very humble origins.
Stripping away partisan and personal differences in favor of the pragmatic observation, Charlie had an amazing talent for managing to twist your arm without you taking notice. His demeanor was such that he disarmed you [pardon the pun]. I suspect that’s partially why his work assisting Afghanistan rebels was so successful.
I clearly remember the subject coming up in the 1990s at an event we both attended. Charlie was holding court and explaining why Afghanistan was essential to American foreign policy. And he predicted — quite accurately — that the U.S. was blowing a golden opportunity and would most certainly pay the price for its negligence.
Thanks to Charlie’s well-chronicled efforts, the U.S. helped the Afghans defeat the Soviet Union, which in turn, played a major role that lead to the demise of the U.S.S.R. But after no sooner than the Soviets were gone, he couldn’t get those in power to take any steps to help the Afghan people establish a sovereign nation with a functional government. Instead, elected leaders blew it off and in the primordial soup that pooled within its shores, extremists gained control with a new target in mind — America.
“We screwed up the end game,” Charlie said in a 2007 interview. I never saw Charlie after the 9-11 tragedy, but I can only imagine that he had to shake his head in frustration the morning after the attack on our soil as it became clear that Afghanistan had been an Al-Qaeda training ground.
All these years later, we still haven’t got it right — but we’d better. The consequences demand it. I think Charlie, a veteran of the Navy, would have us remember that — as you read this — American and NATO forces are attempting to wrest control from Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.
It does boggle the mind that a good ol’ boy from East Texas with a major self-discipline problem would see the dangers inherent in a nation so very far from our shores. It is one of those stories of political intrigue destined to pass into the realm of folklore.
I can’t help but wonder if Bill Clinton’s meteoric fall from grace due to his sexual indiscretions sent a message to Charlie, because he headed to the house as the prying eye of the intrusive media began to focus more clearly on the private life of politicians. One thing is certain in my mind — I doubt his phenomena would could have taken root in this more cynical and clinical TMZ age of angst.
With his death comes the passing of an age, when guys like Charlie Wilson dotted the landscape. He was arguably the last of a breed of free-wheeling, bigger-than-life Texas politicos who played by their own set of rules, and managed to get away with it…