The Billings Gazette did a STORY today about former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and what he’s up to these days. It was surprisingly pretty well done considering some of the stories they ran leading up to the election in 2006. In fact, The Western Word could not find one “unnamed source” or a “source close to the investigation” quote in the whole story. It was even darn nice of him to do an interview, because as a private citizen he could have told the reporter to go to hell, but he didn’t. I probably would have.

I just hope I can be that active when I am 72.

Some lefties must be pretty sore that Burns is not in a federal penitentiary somewhere, doing time. According to them, he was headed there for sure. The fact is that Conrad Burns is still free and he has not been indicted as they claimed he would be real soon when they started their political commercials over a year before the election in 2006.

Sure, he hired an attorney and DC attorneys are costly and needed more than ever in the world of big-time politics. As someone pointed out to me, you need attorneys sometimes to prove your innocence as the Duke Lacrosse players can attest.

What probably bothers some folks is that Burns still believes in our system and he’s not bitter. He’s still being asked by Montanans for assistance and to speak at their events, according to the story. His schedule is a lot better now, too.

The campaign between Burns and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., will go down in Montana history as one of the most bitterly fought campaigns ever (until the next one).