By Will Dunham and Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert Michel, a gentlemanly Midwesterner who championed civility in Washington as House Republican leader but left Congress dismayed by the rise of conservative firebrands in his own party, died on Friday at age 93, a former aide said. Michel died at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, where he had been admitted in the last few weeks with pneumonia, said Michael Johnson, a former chief of staff to the congressman. Michel, a decorated World War Two veteran who was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, was first elected in 1956 to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois and served for 38 years.



More...