Washington has become engulfed in grief.
This town is in a depth of mourning for veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke—who died late Monday at the age of 69—usually reserved for senators or others of elected office.
The outpouring of eulogies for Holbrooke—with such supreme acclaim as that he was "a true giant of American foreign policy," in President Obama's words, or one whose "life's work saved tens of thousands of lives," in those of Sen. John Kerry—has been intense.
And yet, as painful as our anguish is here, I imagine that it must seem strange outside the capital for us to feel so profoundly the loss of someone whom most people in the country probably had never heard of.
Richard Holbrooke, after all, was never a national household name in the way, say, was the case for the late Elizabeth Edwards, who, too, just passed away.
Most of the nation might be quick to dismiss Holbrooke as just one more bureaucrat, another "nameless, faceless functionary," albeit perhaps a high-level one.
It is true that one of the tragedies of Holbrooke's demise is that he died before getting the chance to win wider renown in the high post of Secretary of State.
(And Holbrooke might well have become the next Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Clinton, when, as expected, President Obama moves her to head up the Pentagon to replace Defense Secretary Bob Gates, who plans to retire in the coming year.)
But for those of us in Washington, our sense of loss isn't driven merely by the rank of Holbrooke's last posting.
No, there is much more to it than that, just as there was much more to Holbrooke the man.
Everyone here in this city admired Holbrooke for his accomplishments, and his out-size personality—whether we knew him personally, or not.
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