John Hoke was fired from the federal government in 1962 because he wanted to build a boat powered by the sun.

The Washington Post Staff Photo / – John Hoke and his family are shown preparing for a summer trip to the Floriday Keys in 1955.

Posted to South America with the U.S. Agency for International Development, he devised a collapsible watercraft that would run on solar energy. He said the boat, gliding along at three miles an hour, would carry him up the rivers of Suriname on a diplomatic mission to install radio receivers in far-flung villages and win friends among indigenous tribes.

When the boat’s $28,000 price tag reached the U.S. House, a livid representative from Virginia said Mr. Hoke’s scheme appeared to have emerged straight from “never-never land.” The congressman demanded Mr. Hoke’s dismissal and ordered a wider investigation of USAID’s expenditures.

Some years later, the Army tested the solar-boat design, Mr. Hoke told The Washington Post, and found that it functioned “exactly as I said it would.”

John Hoke, a writer, naturalist and inveterate tinkerer, was 85 when he died Feb. 25 of respiratory failure at his home in Bethesda. He spent much of his life dreaming up ideas that the world wasn’t quite ready for, but his unconventional thinking did succeed in turning some of Washington’s barren and stinky decorative pools into living ecosystems crowded with turtles, fish and waterfowl.

He eventually worked his way back into federal service with the Interior Department , where he was charged with helping to manage Washington’s urban parklands. For decades, he was known as the cigar-chomping fellow who rode around in an electric golf cart, patrolling the Mall and environs.

In the winter, he favored a Sherlock Holmes-style cape that fit his 6-foot-5 frame. During summer, he fended off the heavy humidity with a solar-powered, air-conditioned pith helmet of his own invention.

In 1977, Mr. Hoke campaigned to persuade government officials to install a garden atop the Interior Department’s seven-story D.C. headquarters. The rooftop refuge would save heating and air-conditioning costs throughout the year, acting “as insulation,” Mr. Hoke told The Post at the time, “just as the earth roof of a yurt keeps it warm in winter and cool in summer.”

He envisioned a time when the city’s office buildings would all be topped with soil, trees and birds. “The roofs of Washington are a vast undiscovered country,” he said, “and here we have an opportunity to put back — eight, 10, 15 stories up in the air — the natural environment we destroyed and stripped bare on the ground.”

His vision languished for more than three decades, until 2008, when Interior Department officials cut the ribbon on a new green roof, hailed in news releases for its insulating effects and other benefits.

Bureaucrats did occasionally listen to Mr. Hoke. At his insistence, the National Park Service bought a fleet of electric golf carts for traveling around Washington area parks. Mr. Hoke had proved the carts’ hardiness by using one to journey the length of the C&O Canal, more than 180 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland, Md.

He was perhaps best known in Washington for his madcap and ultimately brilliant effort in the late 1960s to relocate tons of mud and marsh plants from Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens to Simon Bolivar Pond at 18th and C streets NW. He brought turtles, too, that he and his children had found injured on rescue missions around Washington.

“We’d fix them up and put them in a perfect welfare state,” Mr. Hoke said. “They lend a certain class to the place.”

The result was an astonishing conversion of the pond from an algae-choked and odoriferous body of water into a clean and self-sufficient marshland ecosystem.

Soon ducks and geese were frequenting the pond, and it became the prototype for other ponds around town — including one at Constitution Gardens along the Mall, where enterprising urban anglers have been known to land bluegills and largemouth bass.

The rehabilitations saved the government thousands of dollars annually, since the ponds didn’t have to be drained, cleaned and refilled several times each year. Mr. Hoke received a Meritorious Service Award from Interior for his work.

When he retired in 1991, no one knew quite how to describe his job. Newspaper accounts called him a “biological engineer” or an “urban parks specialist.” His co-workers called him “Lord Hoke.”

“I never really worked at this place,” he said at his retirement roast. “I just came aboard, did things, and they paid me for it.”

John Lindsay Hoke was born June 26, 1925, in Pittsburgh. His father was a musician and editor. His mother was a writer who established a successful children’s book publishing house.

Mr. Hoke graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1950 and then went to work as a photographer for the American Automobile Association in Washington. On the side, he indulged his interest in the natural world by writing a dozen books published by his mother’s company: “The First Book of Snakes,” for example, and “Turtles and Their Care.”

He joined the federal agency that became known as USAID in 1957. In Suriname, he became enamored of three-toed sloths after one bit him. He brought a sloth back to Washington, named it Lady III and donated it to the National Zoo.

After losing the USAID job, he made an electric car — retrofitting a boxy old King Midget kit car — for less than $1,000. The vehicle had a top speed of 35 mph and could run 20 miles between charges, according to Life magazine, which ran a photograph of Mr. Hoke standing in his suburban yard in 1966, preparing to plug in his car.

The Hoke home in Glen Echo Heights had indoor and outdoor ponds filled with critters, including a plethora of pet snakes. It was a magnet for neighborhood children and a glorious place for Mr. Hoke’s four children.

“We had so much fun,” said Edward Hoke, recalling how he and his siblings and a gaggle of other kids would join Mr. Hoke in wading into C&O Canal muck up to their necks, looking for turtles. “He never grew up. He was just a kid his whole life.”

Besides Edward Hoke, a Washington resident, survivors include three other children, Lawrence Hoke of Denver and Franklin Hoke and Bonnie Hoke-Scedrov, both of Philadelphia; and five grandchildren.

Also surviving is Mr. Hoke’s wife of 60 years, Sylvia Hyde Hoke of Bethesda, who joked at Mr. Hoke’s retirement party that it was “a little frightening” to think of having him and his crackling energy at home full time.

In recent years, Mr. Hoke continued to work on various projects in his basement shop. He never lost his fascination with alternative energy.

Once, he lured baby squirrels into his house, fed them and then hooked up the running wheels in their cages to electric generators.

“You’ve heard of two cars in every garage?” his longtime friend Joe Goodwin told The Post in 1991. “John wanted every house to have 20 squirrels.”

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt last May, introducing Google TV at the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco. (ROBERT GALBRAITH – REUTERS) Even before he’s out as Google’s chief executive, Eric Schmidt is reportedly on the short list to be President Obama’s next Commerce Secretary. Buzz has been building for the past week that Schmidt is being seriously considered as a candidate for the administration post once he leaves the company in April, after a decade at Google’s helm. Google co-founder Larry Page will step in as CEO this spring.

Schmidt recently secured a nod from former Reagan administration Commerce Department counsel Clyde Prestowitz. Prestowitz, whose endorsement could signal bipartisan support, said in a Foreign Policy piece that he would “wholeheartedly urge President Obama to move ahead with this appointment.”

Schmidt is known not only for his business acumen but also for his colorful and controversial comments, particularly when it comes to explaining Google’s privacy policies.

The rumors about Schmidt’s possible nomination are apparently substantial enough to make Schmidt’s critics nervous as well.

Consumer Watchdog, well-known for its opposition of Google — and Schmidt in particular — issued a release Thursday in opposition to a possible appointment. The group also sent a letter to Obama asking him not to nominate Schmidt for the position. “Putting Eric Schmidt in charge of policing online privacy is like appointing Bernie Madoff to direct the Securities Exchange Commission,” the release said.

Others who have been mentioned as possibilities for the nomination include U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

Current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is Obama’s nominee to be the next ambassador to China.

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was “splitting” with the company. Schmidt will step down as CEO of Google but will remain the company’s executive chairman.

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Charles Colson assembles the newest members of his Christian army at a Loudoun County convention hall on a winter Saturday.

Bill O’Leary / THE WASHINGTON POST – Charles Colson wants to arrest the replacement of his tenets by what he sees as a seeker-driven Christianity-lite.

Seated before the aging Watergate-era felon-turned-evangelical leader are dozens of handpicked disciples: a woman who sings at patriotic events, a sports psychology professor, a real estate developer, a pharmaceutical salesman.

They’ve spent the year — and as much as $4,000 — reading the books Colson reads, watching the movies he watches, praying the way he prays. It’s all part of an ambitious effort by Colson to replicate his spiritual DNA and ensure that his vision of Christianity doesn’t die when he does.

“This is the time for us to metastasize and impact society!” the gravelly-voiced former Nixon aide tells his rapt audience. “And this is a really, really urgent hour.”

For decades after emerging from a federal penitentiary, Colson focused on building what has become the world’s biggest prison ministry. Now, at 79, he has shifted his attention to the final mission of his remarkable life: saving what he regards as true Christianity from American extinction.

Time is running out.

There are no clear heirs to lead the movement that made conservative evangelicals a political force in the United States. No new Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons, James Dobsons or Charles Colsons. Even Franklin Graham, the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham, is 58.

Like many other religious conservatives, Colson believes that his views about the inerrancy of the Bible and Jesus’s role as the only path to salvation aren’t being taught — not in schools and not in churches. Instead, he laments, those essential, unchanging tenets are being replaced by a seeker-driven Christianity-lite, something not far from secularism and relativism.

Which is why he is working furiously, long after many men his age have hit the golf course.

Walking to lunch between weekend sessions in Virginia, Colson admits he is tired. He’s sick of meetings. He calls himself an introvert who forces himself to globe-trot to spread his message.

He lectures, blogs and broadcasts a daily radio commentary that is also sent out via e-mail; the commentary reaches about 2?million followers each weekday. (He also serves as a panelist for On Faith, The Post’s online forum about religion and politics.) And he is molding hundreds of men and women eager to be his spiritual progeny.

“If Jesus Christ can pick some believers, zealots and prostitutes, and these people can change the world, then we can do the same. We don’t need anything more,” says one of Colson’s followers, Steve King, a 57-year-old paddle-sports equipment salesman and former Olympic kayaker from Quebec.

They are called Centurions, a name that conjures battle-hardened Roman soldiers. They number 640, and their marching orders from their commander are clear — to expand Christ’s kingdom.

“What this country needs,” Colson declares, “is a movement.”

‘Christ rejects Colson’

Chuck Colson’s biography defies a single tag: Nixon’s dark side. Watergate scoundrel. Republican strategist. Adulterer. Drunk. Best-selling author. Prisoner advocate. Towering evangelist.

Long before he became a regular on top-10 lists of U.S. evangelical leaders, Colson was famous for being Richard Nixon’s “hatchet man,” the aide who created the president’s infamous en­emies’ list. He was Nixon’s lawyer by the time he was 38.

In 1974, he was indicted for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglary that brought down the Nixon presidency. But he pleaded guilty to a separate charge of obstruction of justice for his role in trying discredit Daniel Ellsberg, the psychiatrist who leaked the Pentagon Papers. He served seven months at a federal prison in Alabama.

So dark was Colson’s reputation that much of Washington laughed skeptically when he announced that he had embraced Christianity.

“Someone in the newsroom wrote a fake headline saying ‘Christ Rejects Colson.’ Here was the toughest of the tough,” said Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor for The Post who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Watergate scandal with partner Carl Bernstein.

But the drama of Colson’s plunge was key to his rise as a Christian leader.

After his incarceration, Colson could have easily made millions in business or as a celebrity evangelist. Instead he founded Prison Fellowship, a multi­million-dollar ministry that advocates for prisoners and preaches behind bars in 1,400 U.S. jails and in 110 other countries. His prison work was his redemption, transforming him into one of the country’s most admired evangelical leaders.

Colson, who lives in Florida full time after years of dividing his time between the Sunshine State and Northern Virginia, hasn’t lost his taste for politics. He works against measures to legalize gay marriage and served as an informal adviser to former George W. Bush aide Karl Rove. But he doesn’t usually sound strident when he talks about hot-button social issues and is viewed more as the wise grandfather of the religious right. He is funny before a crowd, quick to hug fans (especially prisoners) and is treated like a rock star at Christian events. People constantly approach him to talk about their ministry projects, push their books or ask for an autograph.

It was his stature that led to the suggestion that Colson find a way to multiply himself — passing on his orthodox Christian beliefs as well as his talent for communicating them.

“The point was to get more people to be like Chuck,” says Chip Mahon, a retired financial services executive who sits on the board of BreakPoint, the umbrella group for Colson’s various ministries, including the Centurions, which began in 2004.

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Two new Washington Post/ABC News poll stories on Tuesday highlight public opinion on the war in Afghanistan and the broad uncertainty over the direction of the U.S. government. Digging deeper into the numbers finds differing reactions from Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Almost three-quarters of the public thinks the United States should withdraw substantial combat forces from Afghanistan this summer. Republicans are much less likely than Democrats and independents to think troops should be withdrawn on this timetable. Far fewer overall — just 39 percent — believe troops will actually be drawn down starting in the summer. Democrats are more optimistic than Republicans and independents in this regard.

In the second poll story, just over a quarter express optimism over the future of our system of government and how well it works. Nearly half are uncertain about the future. Unlike most attitudes about the government and politics in Washington, there is less political division on this question. Three in 10 or fewer Democrats, Republicans and independents express optimism about the future.

By Peyton M. Craighill  |  06:41 PM ET, 03/14/2011

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Trying to ramp up pressure on the White House to move forward on a trio of trade pacts, Senate Republicans said Monday that they would block confirmation of a new Commerce secretary or any other trade nominee until President Obama submitted trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama for ratification.

Leading Republicans said they had commitments from 44 Republican senators, more than enough to filibuster any nominee for the Cabinet post being vacated by Gary Locke. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a former Bush administration trade representative, said Republicans were acting to encourage the administration to advance trade deals the president supports.

“We’re trying to help the president to do what he has talked about, of doubling exports over the next five years,” said Mr. Portman, who said the trade deals would create an estimated 250,000 jobs. “We can only do it by opening more markets to U.S. workers and farmers and service providers. And these three agreements are a great way to do it.”

Democrats criticized the Republican approach. “This tactic is a diversion from our goal and is simply not the way to ensure their passage,” Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat and chairman of the Finance Committee, said. “It is time for us to work together to approve these agreements.”

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Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, has written a letter to the speaker, John A. Boehner, requesting an estimate of the cost of defending cases concerning the Defense of Marriage Act, and suggested that to do so will be too costly to taxpayers.

Mr. Boehner, along with his Republican colleagues on the House leadership team, directed the House general counsel to initiate a legal defense of the statute following President Obama’s decision to stop doing so because he concluded that the law, which bans the federal recognition of same-sex marriage, was unconstitutional. The administration would still enforce the 1996 statute, but the Justice Department will no longer have a role in defending the roughly 10 cases now before the courts.

The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (known by the unfortunate acronym BLAG), on which leaders of both parties in the House sit, voted 3-2 along party lines to initiate the defense of the act last week.

In her letter sent to Mr. Boehner on Friday Ms. Pelosi said: “The resolution passed by the BLAG also directs the House General Counsel to hire private lawyers rather than utilize his own office to represent the House. The General Counsel indicated that he lacked the personnel and the budget to absorb those substantial litigation duties. It is important that the House receive an estimate of the cost to taxpayers for engaging private lawyers to intervene in the pending DOMA cases. It is also important that the House know whether the BLAG, the General Counsel, or a Committee of the House have the responsibility to monitor the actions of the outside lawyers and their fees.”

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 12, 2011

An earlier version of this post misstated the chamber of Congress in which Nancy Pelosi is the Democratic leader. It is the House, not the Senate.

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The Republican Party of Wisconsin has produced a striking web video highlighting the angry rhetoric coming from the pro-union protesters in Madison.

Among the signs that the video highlights are ones comparing Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, to Adolf Hitler and Hosni Mubarak, the recently deposed Egyptian president.

“Scott Walker = Adolf Hitler. Don’t let history repeat itself!” one sign reads. Another says “Midwest Mussolini.” A third accuses Mr. Walker of “raping” public union workers and says, “Rape is never a good solution.”

The web video contrasts the angry rhetoric with accusations from Democratic leaders and liberal activists that conservatives used inappropriate language during the debate over health care.

“Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler,” says Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary. His comments are followed by images of Hitler being carried around by union protesters in Wisconsin.

Eugene Robinson, a liberal columnist for the Washington Post, is shown saying that “Violent political rhetoric and the threat of political violence in this country comes almost exclusively from the right.”

That is followed by a sign from the Wisconsin rallies showing Mr. Walker’s picture with a gunsight crosshair over it and the words: “Don’t retreat. Reload. Repeal Walker.”

Bill Maher, the liberal comedian, is shown telling host Jay Leno that “the right wing loves, the go-to rhetoric for them is ‘wouldn’t it be fun to kill the people we disagree with.’ Left wingers don’t talk that way.”

That is followed by signs that say “Death to Tyrants” and “One Down, One to Go. Dictators” — with the pictures of Mr. Walker and Mr. Mubarak next to each other.

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WARNING: Politicians trying to be comedians appear in this post.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is in search of a day job as he contemplates whether he wants to challenge President Obama for the big corner office in the West Wing.

Meanwhile, it appears the 2012 presidential election will happen without Michael Steele at the helm of the Republican Party. Mr. Steele, who just got the boot as chairman of the Republican National Committee, has some extra time on his hands, too.

So what did both men do this week? What plenty of out-of-work Americans do when they need a break from the doldrums: they decided to try their hand at comedy.

Mr. Romney appeared Tuesday night on CBS’s “Late Night With David Letterman” show, presenting the Letterman Top 10 list in person, poking fun of himself and — more to the point — hawking his book, “No Apology.”

Standing awkwardly on the stage, but with perfectly coiffed hair, as usual, Mr. Romney offered the “Top 10 Things You Don’t Know about Mitt Romney.”

Among them: “I’m the guy in the picture that comes with your photo frame.”

Advisers to Mr. Romney insist he’s not a candidate for president — yet. But late-night comedy shows have become the new, electronic primary place to be. (Watch out, Iowa and New Hampshire. These appearances are now “First in the Nation.”)

Mr. Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (then a New York senator) and Senator John McCain of Arizona all appeared on multiple comedy shows during the 2008 campaign. And the genre dates even further. Former Vice President Al Gore once appeared on “Saturday Night Live” to deliver the State of the Union address he never got to do as president.

But Mr. Steele’s appearance with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” may have been the first time a national party chairman ever appeared with a puppet.

Mr. Stewart has repeatedly used a blue-skinned puppet as a stand-in for the real Mr. Steele in past shows. So on Tuesday’s appearance, with the real Mr. Steele sitting side-by-side next to the puppet, Mr. Stewart joked that he didn’t know which one to interview.

The puppet offered a solution: “Only one thing to do, Johnny Beefstew. Ask us questions only the real Michael Steele could answer!”

Mr. Steele played along, offering the pronunciation of the name of his replacement at the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, and joining in the puppet’s tendency to rhyme when Mr. Stewart finally picked him as the real thing.

“Whoa, whoa,” Mr. Steele said. “He picked me. So take a hike, Dick Van Dyke.”

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In The Times:
–John Harwood writes about how President Obama’s call last week for a country that “lives up to our children’s expectations” resonates on this Martin Luther King’s Birthday for black children, whose life prospects remain significantly diminished compared with white children’s.

–Monica Davey points out how new and re-elected governors of all political stripes are proposing strikingly similar remedies for their states’ budget woes.

–In The Times’s coverage of the Tucson shooting spree, Michael Luo, Sam Dolnick and Jennifer Medina report that Representative Gabrielle Giffords’s condition has been upgraded to serious from critical. Ms. Giffords’s husband, the astronaut Mark Kelly, spoke publicly for the first time at a funeral for another victim. Jenna Wortham looks at postings by the murder suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, on online gaming forums, while Mr. Dolnick profiles Suzanne Burros, an advocate for victims, who was first on the scene to help victims, witnesses and family members cope.

–When the House resumes legislative business on Tuesday, lawmakers are expected to dial down the heated political rhetoric, note Carl Hulse and David M. Herszenhorn. A vote this week on a Republican measure to repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul might test their resolve.

–President Hu Jintao of China is expected in Washington this week for meetings with President Obama and American business groups aimed at mending ties between China and the United States. David E. Sanger and Michael Wines examine the weakened position of the Chinese leader and lay out the challenges for both sides to improving relations.

Around the Web:
–The Washington Post examines how black leaders have struggled to stem growing rates of poverty among black children and the bigger problems they face as states and the federal government look to trim spending and shrink gaping budget holes.

–The Post also reports that federal authorities plan to move Mr. Loughner’s trial to San Diego, out of concern over pretrial publicity and sensitivity in Arizona about the shootings.

–Add former Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, a Republican, to the camp of lawmakers opposed to raising the federal debt ceiling. Instead, he suggested to The Wall Street Journal (and on “Fox News Sunday”) that Congress buy time by passing legislation “that would put interest and debt payments ahead of other federal spending and allow the federal government to pay its creditors as tax revenue flows in.”

– CNN reports that Mr. Jintao plans to emphasize “strategic mutual trust” in his meetings with American government and business officials. Mr. Jintao also answered several written questions on monetary policy and diplomatic ties from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

–The Washington Post reports that the Afghan government is sending “overdue” tax bills to American contractors operating there in an effort to raise millions for the government and assert more control over the direction of the nation. Officials in both countries disagree over whether the practice is legal.

In Washington:
–The president and Mrs. Obama will use the holiday to participate in service projects in the Washington area. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Jill Biden will participate in activities in Wilmington, Del.

–Let them eat cake! Today is Mrs. Obama’s 47th birthday.

–Demonstrators plan to gather outside the Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia to protest the detention of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking thousands of classified cables to the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks. Mr. Manning is being held there as he awaits trial.

–R. Sargent Shriver, a former Peace Corps director and vice-presidential nominee, has been hospitalized outside Washington. According to The Associated Press, the hospital would not comment on Mr. Shriver’s condition, although he is known to have Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Shriver is 95.

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 17, 2011

An earlier version of this post misspelled R. Sargent Shriver’s given name as Sargeant.

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From Today’s Times:

Around the Web:

Washington Happenings:

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 10, 2011

A previous version of this post misstated when Representative Giffords did an interview with MSNBC in which she warned about the consequences of political rhetoric; the interview was last March.

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