The Oklahoma Republican, a practicing obstetrician, combined fierce devotion to principle with rigorous intellectual integrity and tremendous personal decency. One of the most hard-line conservatives in first the House and then the Senate, he nonetheless enjoyed the respect and friendship of many liberal Democrats. Not the least of these was President Barack Obama, with whom he reportedly spoke in private, as a friend and sounding board, almost weekly throughout Obama’s White House tenure.
"I’m adamantly against 80 percent of President Obama’s policies," Coburn told the Oklahoman newspaper. "But he is an honest liberal. ... Am I to hate him because he has a different viewpoint than I do? Or should I love him and try to touch his heart and change him?"
When Coburn arrived on Capitol Hill in the "Gingrich Revolution" Republican class of 1994, he was an unyielding ideologue. Even then, though, there was a difference: Whereas some super-hard-liners are full of sound and fury without much thoughtfulness, Coburn obviously had depth and intellect.