It's not the 'in' thing in Washington currently to be anti-establishment, or to stick to your own views, or to have and use your values, but occasionally you get the occasional loose cannon. I genuinely like what I've heard of this man, and think it's dissappointing that liberals (who at least theoretically hearken back to the days of radical individualism in the '60s and '70s) feel the need to vilify him. Who knows, maybe they feel threatened. Leahy probably did, but that was his own fault for being a jackass.