Indiana's wise statesman

America isn't a big fan of Congress right now. \nGranted, in general we don't hold our elected representatives in high esteem since most of them are corrupt, spoiled, opportunistic, lying louts. But according to a Gallup poll released this week, our approval of the nation's leading legislative body is approaching near-record lows. A scant 23 percent of America rates Congress favorably, the fourth-lowest rating since polling began more than 30 years ago.\nCoincidentally, this week's issue of Time magazine lists the nation's top 10 senators. Ten is really just an arbitrary number, and if hard pressed, we might not be able to agree on 10 senators we truly admire as an editorial board. But Time managed to find 10, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion from Massachusetts; Sen. John McCain, the maverick Republican from Arizona; and our very own Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.\nWe think Lugar is an excellent choice, and not just because he represents Indiana. The 74-year-old senator has served his state and nation well since he was elected in 1976. He's been a voice of temperance within his own party, a leading internationalist and a voice of pragmatism in his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, let alone being the \npatriarch of Indiana politics.\nLugar's accomplishments are impressive. In the 1980s, he pushed for democracy in the Philippines and South Africa when Ronald Reagan's administration was pushing the other way. In the 1990s, he helped dramatically reform outdated farm programs, at the risk of alienating his own agriculturally-centered state. And now, a Prius driver, he is pushing for more independence from foreign oil and hasn't been afraid to call out the Bush administration for hubris and mismanagement in Iraq. \nPerhaps Lugar's best known achievement has been working with former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., in dismantling errant nuclear weapons from former Soviet republics. The visionary Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, implemented in 1991 -- when "terrorism" wasn't as potent of a buzzword as it is today -- has so far deactivated 6,828 nuclear warheads. That's 6,828 fewer warheads unable to reach the hands of those who wish violence on innocents.\nFor his and Nunn's efforts, they were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. (Instead, the award mistakenly went to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, under whose watch North Korea and Iran have become atomic threats. Cough cough, we hope the Nobel committee keeps Lugar and Nunn in mind next year, cough cough.)\nLugar is on his way to cruising to a fifth term, a record unmatched in Indiana politics. He has no opponent for his November 2006 reelection, but that wouldn't much matter; he's received two-thirds of the vote in the last three elections and undoubtedly deserves reelection this year. We might not agree with him on every issue he's faced in the last 30 years, but we agree Lugar is a first-class statesman honestly working to make the world a safer, stronger place. Time magazine was certainly right to name him to their list.