October 9, 2015 will forever mark the end of an era in D.C. journalism history: the day Al Kamen retired. Today, Kamen published the last of his 2,700-some columns in The Washington Post, putting to rest his political column “In The Loop.”

But the column—the Loop for short—is only one among the legions of political pieces that fill out D.C. papers and news websites.

So why does this obscure column, hidden in the double-digit pages of the Post’s A section, deserve special recognition? First, it’s funny. Kamen worked to chronicle government mishaps and many of those are pretty comical. Here are some of the Loop’s headlines over the past month: “FEC also confused why a Ted Cruz super PAC is donating to Carly Fiorina,” “The time the White House operator didn’t believe Hillary Clinton was calling” and “Lawmakers spend last week of recess ‘fact-finding’ in Hawaii.”

What’s more impressive, though, is how Kamen used the column to spark genuine change. His articles have exposed luxury vacations congresspeople took on the taxpayers’ dime, ambassadorial jobs given to unqualified campaign bundlers and a bonus salary given by a World Bank president to his coworker significant other.

Likely the biggest impact came in 2010, when Kamen called then-Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama “loopy” after he requested a private meeting with Obama at a summit—and got denied. The growing anti-Hatoyama coalition in Japan picked up the term “loopy,” the PM himself addressed the line, and within a month he had resigned—not solely due to the Loop, of course, but the article was a watershed moment in the head of government’s career.

Kamen’s humor and his very real impact combined to make the Loop truly stand out. The things he said mattered, but he was completely readable, too, punctuating his articles with clever asides and reader-engaging contests. That expanded his watchdog views to a broader public—not only the major investigative scoops but also the daily insights into what politics looks like from up on Capitol Hill.

So if you haven’t been reading the Loop, now’s the time to start. It’d be a fitting thank-you to a man who got the word out, popularizing the crucial yet mysterious inner workings of our federal government.