When I was on Saturday Night Live back in the day, we had some amazing hosts. I mean, we had Lily Tomlin and Robin Williams and Terry Gar and Ringo Starr and lots of others. We also had a couple of non-showbiz hosts. One of them was

Senator George McGovern. Now, George McGovern's run for president was before my time. I mean,

I was alive in 1972, of course, but I was a little kid when McGovern lost every state but Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. to Richard Nixon.

That loss was so catastrophic that even more than a decade later when he hosted S&L, he was still something of a national punchline.

I mean, he'd kind of been redeemed when Nixon went on to

be an horrendous president, driven out of office by hubris and corruption and scandal, you know,

back when stuff like that could actually hurt your political career. But I think he was still

mostly remembered as this huge loser with a thin, reedy, Midwestern voice.

So when he showed up at 30 Rock and he was 6'1 and he was tan and lanky and handsome and smart and funny, it was a bit of a surprise.

I remember almost nothing about the show that week,

actually. I do remember there was sort of a what-if sketch where Carl Sagan shows us what would

have happened if McGovern had beaten Nixon. But the thing I remember most is late one night,

we were hanging out, probably in my then-boyfriend, now husband, Brad's office.

And Brad loved McGovern more than anybody.

And anyway, so we were all there together, just shooting the shit.

And McGovern was sitting on the desk, and he told us this story.

His condo in Washington, where he lived with his wife, had burned down in a terrible fire.

His son Stephen was staying with him, and somehow Senator McGovern and his wife and Stephen were all able to get out of the burning building.

But everything was lost, including his

official papers and family photos, records of his military service. Nixon had tried to make

McGovern out to be a peacnick, by the way, but McGovern was a genuine war hero. He flew 35

combat missions in World War II and was awarded the distinguished

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