Washington has almost stopped producing a certain kind of elected official: a man (or woman) who arrives with a job to do, does it well, and leaves at the right time in the right way. Representative Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican and chairman emeritus of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is departing the House after eleven terms. Conservatives who like to grumble about the Capitol’s do-nothing lifers should take note.
McCaul came to Congress in 2005 by way of the courtroom, not the cocktail circuit. He was a federal prosecutor serving as chief of counterterrorism and national security for the Western District of Texas. Before that, he was a deputy to another Texas hero, then–Attorney General John Cornyn. September 11 changed his priorities and his career. He decided to run for Congress on the proposition that the country had just learned how thin the margin is between security and catastrophe and needed to do everything possible to enhance the former. Fortunately, he never lost sight of his mission and spent the next two decades as a widely respected foreign policy and national security leader in the House.
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