patrick.net

Electric Lard!
Thanks you just named a new musical project we've been trying to come up with a name.

Had to look him up:

Melvin Robert Laird, who as President Nixon's secretary of Defense ended the draft, created the all-volunteer armed forces and ordered the Pentagon's drawdown of military personnel from the Vietnam War, died Wednesday. He was 94.

The first former congressman to serve as Defense secretary, Laird died in Florida, according to Laird's grandson, Raymond Dennis Large III.

Laird, a Republican, served nine terms in the House of Representatives from Wisconsin at a time when camaraderie marked the chamber. At the Pentagon, he helped improve the Defense Department's relationship with Congress by pruning budget requests without any real harm to national security.

After Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, Laird lobbied him to appoint Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.) as secretary of Defense. But Jackson, under pressure from fellow Democrats not to give Nixon a bipartisan Cabinet during the Vietnam War, declined the offer, so Nixon insisted Laird take it. But Laird knew that White House interference could make his life at the Pentagon miserable. In a remarkable maneuver, he got Nixon to agree that Laird, not the president, would have final say on all appointments and decisions.

Who?