This interesting Victor Davis Hanson column on John Kerry’s military service is respectful and insightful, and Professor Hanson’s conclusion is absolutely brilliant:

So I conclude with empathy for John Kerry, whom I appreciate as a veteran who served his country ? even if I would not now vote for him. He should have been aware of the god Nemesis. Still, in a spirit of magnanimity and appreciation for his months on a boat in a very inhospitable landscape, Americans perhaps should remember the words of Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: “For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country’s battles should be as a cloak to cover a man’s other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual.”

This Austin American-Statesman (free online subscription required) article provides a profile on Bob Perry, the Houston-based homebuilder who has become the largest contributor to Texas Republican political candidates.
On one hand, Mr. Perry is reported to be an unassuming contributor:

At the state level, several office-holders said Perry never asks anything of them.
Patterson was the state senator for Perry’s district before becoming land commissioner.
“In 20 years, he’s never asked me for anything,” Patterson said. “When I was in the Senate, there were issues he was interested in, but he never called up and said, ‘Can you help me on this?’ ”
Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs agrees.
“He doesn’t lobby me,” she said. “I lobby him. I know he has contacts.”
She said she asked his advice on how to encourage home construction in rural areas. He also organized a meeting of Houston ministers in minority communities when she wanted to talk about schoolchildren’s diets.
When Bob Deuell was running against a Democratic incumbent for a Dallas-area Senate seat, he got help from Perry before ever meeting him.
“I just started getting these checks from him,” Deuell recalls. When Deuell phoned to thank Perry and ask for a meeting, Perry said there was no need. “I know who you are,” Deuell remembers Perry telling him.
By Election Day, the checks totaled more than $250,000.

On the other hand, Mr. Perry has received some valuable business consideration for his hefty political contributions:

Perry got plenty for the $3.8 million he spent on the 2002 elections.
In 2003, a Republican-controlled Legislature curbed the ability of consumers to file lawsuits against businesses.
Krugh, the lawyer for Perry Homes, also helped write legislation that created the Texas Residential Construction Commission, a new state agency to create rules for dispute resolution between home builders and consumers. The governor then appointed Krugh to the nine-member commission.
Opponents see the new agency as a hurdle to consumers suing home builders; the builders defend it as a quicker, fairer way to resolve disputes.
“Bob Perry was highly rewarded with his own state agency,” said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston. “In Texas you can buy your own state agency, then regulate yourself.”

Doesn’t Governor Perry and the Texas Republican Party stand for less governmental regulation? Or is it that they stand for less governmental regulation except in those cases where more regulation will benefit their largest contributor?