The Golden Age of the Senate, when personal integrity and partisan harmony reigned, seems always to be hovering somewhere near the edge of living memory. The death of former Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan last month, at age 87, is a case in point. Levin was remembered by the New York Times for his friendly relations with his onetime Republican colleague, Alan Simpson of Wyoming, with whom he served on the Armed Services Committee. Levin’s hometown paper, the Detroit Free Press, quoted another committee colleague, the late John McCain, who regarded Levin as “a model of serious purpose, firm principle and personal decency.”

All of which, strictly speaking, was true. Levin was a member of a large and exceptionally accomplished Jewish family in Detroit with deep roots and varied experience in public service. His lawyer father Saul was Michigan’s corrections commissioner. His uncle Theodore was chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Detroit, where the federal courthouse bears his name. His older brother Sander was a state senator and, later, longtime member of Congress from Michigan’s 9th Congressional District, a seat now held by his son.