To the James Abourezk wing of the Democratic Party, from which emerged Senator Daschle of South Dakota, we’ve never been particularly sympathetic. And we’ve had our differences with Mr. Daschle over the years on issues like taxes and judges. But as the minority leader departs the upper chamber, we don’t mind pausing to salute him for the way, during the current war, he displayed a bipartisan patriotism. It was ridiculed mercilessly by Michael Moore in his film “Fahrenheit 911,” but the senator deserves to know that many Americans, in both parties, recognized his stand.

After serving as an aide to Senator Abourezk, Mr. Daschle was first elected to Congress in 1978 and to the Senate in 1986. He was the recipient of one of the anthrax letters sent to the Senate in 2001. In 2003, he was one of 17 Democrats in the Senate who had the courage to break with one of his party’s main interest groups, the abortion-rights lobby, by voting in favor of a ban on partial-birth abortion.

Mr. Daschle voted for both the resolution to authorize war in Iraq and for the $87 billion to support the troops there. Immediately after September 11, Mr. Daschle was quoted by the Associated Press as telling reporters: “This is not a time for us to be viewed as Democrats or Republicans or even as people from South Dakota or California or New York…It is in keeping with our strong desire not to have Republican or Democratic positions on this matter but American positions.”

Mr. Moore was not the only fringe leftist to deride Mr. Daschle for his stance. And some Republicans may have seen his positioning as a partisan effort to latch on to President Bush’s own popularity following the attacks. Mr. Daschle played a destructive role in the Senate on many issues, which no doubt contributed to his loss. But in view of the alternatives on the war front, the country, and the Democratic Party, could do worse than to have more Democrats like Mr. Daschle.