One of the coolest places in America has got to be Youngstown, OH. You know it's cool because the newspaper is called The Vindicator. It's also cool because until recently it had the nuttiest congressman around, James Traficant. Traficant doesn't always get the most attention in national media but on Capitol Hill he's a great source of entertainment. C-SPAN watchers got more than their share of Traficant's one-minute speeches, whose subjects ranged from his ongoing "feud" with the FBI (actually he was being investigated for corruption) to UFOs to the China Threat. This is unsubstantiated, but he often looked to me like he was drunk when he made those speeches. Maybe that's just the way he acted. In later years his corruption investigation overshadowed everything. In 2000, he even pledged to vote for Dennis Hastert as House Speaker because he had "done more to help him [Traficant] with his problems" than the Democratic leadership. The Ohio State Democratic Party tried, but failed, to get him kicked out of the party.

Youngstown is not without its problems. A steel-dependent town, it has suffered from a shrinking steel economy in the past 30 years, and it's one of the most mob-infested places around. There were gallons of evidence against him and it was clear to all that Traficant was guilty of corruption, but he maintained his innocence and defended himself in court, as he had successfully done in 1983. Unfortunately, he was finally found guilty last month. He could be spending many years behind bars.

I was delighted to find that the Vindicator had written Traficant a fitting political obituary.