{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=88B5C40A-16FB-4B38-9AAC-5FCF30E4FCB4", "McConnell Remarks Honoring Sen. Bob Dole", "2021-12-06", "2021", "2021-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the passing of former Senator Bob Dole:\n\n\u201cIt is hard to believe it\u2019s been 25 years since Senator Robert J. Dole took leave of the Senate. It\u2019s even harder to believe he passed away this past weekend.\n\n\u201cNot because it comes as a shock to say goodbye to an elder statesman at age 98\u2026 but because our colleague was still so energetic, so involved, and so forward-looking, right through to his final months.\n\n\u201cIf you didn\u2019t know Bob Dole, if you just read a summary \u2014 of his impressive Senate career, his leadership tenure, his presidential campaign \u2014 he might sound like a man of contrasts.\n\n\u201cOn one hand, our friend from Kansas preached conservative values: personal responsibility and fiscal discipline. But this son of the Dust Bowl and wounded warrior was also laser-focused on caring for the most vulnerable, notching landmark wins on subjects from food insecurity to veterans\u2019 issues to the rights of disabled Americans.\n\n\u201cOn one hand, Senator Dole took pride in our Republican Party. He rose to key roles that were necessarily somewhat partisan, first leading our Senate Republican Conference for many years and then leading a presidential ticket. But he was also a consensus-finding legislator, an honest broker with deep friendships and working relationships that spanned the aisle.\n\n\u201cOn one hand, our colleague was earnest, unironic, and somewhat serious \u2014 a true Greatest Generation Midwesterner. But he also wielded a charming, disarming, and self-deprecating sense of humor, whether he was cracking one-liners, often at his own expense, or doing a joint appearance with his comic impersonator.\n\n\u201cAllow me just one example of Bob Dole\u2019s comedic talent.\n\n\u201cIn January of 1997, just after President Clinton had defeated Bob and won his re-election, the President graciously bestowed on Bob the Presidential Medal of Freedom.\n\n\u201cThere they were, in mid-January, just three days before the day Bob had spent months hoping he\u2019d be inaugurated, but President Clinton would be re-inaugurated instead. It was a gracious gesture and a warm event all around.\n\n\u201cThe time comes for Bob\u2019s remarks. He walks to the podium. Looks around. And he begins:\n\n\u201c\u2018I, Robert J. Dole\u2026\u2019 The crowd is already cracking up.\n\n\u201c\u2018Do solemnly swear\u2026\u2019 Then a theatrical pause.\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh, sorry \u2013 wrong speech!\u2019\n\n\u201cOnce the laughs began to die down, there came the self-deprecating punchline: \u2018I thought I\u2019d be here this historic week receiving something from the President. But I thought it\u2019d be the front door key!\u2019\n\n***\n\n\u201cThe thing is, Madam President, there was no contradiction in any of it. No paradox. Bob\u2019s life and career were very consistent.\n\n\u201cThe virtues and the values that led Bob Dole to raise his right hand, enlist in the Army, and fight bravely until he could not raise that hand any longer\u2026 were the same virtues and values that compelled him to raise his left hand for a different oath in the Kansas State Capitol a few years later.\n\n\u201cAnd then across the Rotunda in the U.S. House. And then here in the Senate.\n\n\u201cThe same virtues and values that animated Bob\u2019s passionate, pointed speeches in the 1960s about a citizen\u2019s duty animated his great empathy towards those who needed help.\n\n\u201cWith Bob Dole, what you saw was what you got. And from his comrades in the 10th Mountain Division\u2026 to his constituents in Kansas\u2026 to the whole Senate and the entire country\u2026 what we got was extraordinary.\n\n\u201cI cannot summarize in one speech the full life or legacy of our friend Bob. There are the battlefield heroics\u2026 the hospital-bed friendship with fellow future Senators Phil Hart and \u2018the best bridge player at Percy Jones Hospital,\u2019 Dan Inouye\u2026 There\u2019s the policy legacy that endures to this day.\n\n\u201cThese remembrances will take Congress this whole week. And they\u2019ll occupy historians for decades to come.\n\n***\n\n\u201cBob Dole had the same chief hero for his entire adult life: His fellow son of Kansas, a General and then a President, Dwight Eisenhower.\n\n\u201cBob didn\u2019t just like Ike, he idolized him. In Senator Dole\u2019s Senate farewell speech in 1996, he saved the second-to-last quotation for his hero from Abilene, Kansas. He kept his foot personally on the gas pedal for the Eisenhower Memorial here in Washington well into his nineties. He invoked and praised Ike constantly throughout his career.\n\n\u201cOne such occasion was in late 1979. An event was held at Eisenhower\u2019s boyhood home, presidential library, and gravesite in Abilene, on what would have been his 89th birthday. It so happened that only a couple weeks later, Mrs. Eisenhower would pass away and be laid to rest there as well.\n\n\u201cOn that day, Senator Dole explained that America had gotten \u2018lucky.\u2019\n\n\u201cWhy? Because \u2014 quote \u2014 \u2018when we were thirsty for leadership, we turned to a man from Kansas, a genuine hero who embodied in his own life the finest qualities of the American people\u2026\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018\u2026A man from grassroots America, steeped in the traditions of neighborhood and patriotism and service\u2026 A strong man who earned his strength in war, yet never forgot the disease of poverty or the scourge of personal suffering.\u2019\n\n\u201cBob was always eloquent, and those lines of his certainly did describe Ike. But now that our friend\u2019s 98 amazing years have come to a close, we can say with certainty that Eisenhower isn\u2019t the only Kansan who meets those standards.\n\n\u201cNot only General Eisenhower, but also Second Lieutenant Robert J. Dole himself, was a genuine hero from Kansas\u2026 who helped satisfy a nation\u2019s thirst for leadership\u2026\n\n\u201cWho was steeped in homespun American values and proud of it\u2026 Who\u2019d fought with great courage and valor on the battlefield\u2026 And whose concern for the most vulnerable in our society came right with him into the halls of power.\n\n***\n\n\u201cI mentioned that Eisenhower was Bob\u2019s second-to-last quotation in his farewell remarks to the Senate. I want to close today where he closed 25 years ago.\n\n\u201cMusing on both his past and his future, our colleague\u2019s final quote was from the Midwestern poet Carl Sandburg: \u2018Yesterday is a wind gone down, a sun dropped in the West. I tell you that there is nothing in the world, only an ocean for tomorrows, a sky of tomorrow.\u2019\n\n\u201cNow, for our remarkable friend, the sun of this world has set at last.\n\n\u201cBut we pray in faith that he now beholds an even brighter light. That the endless ocean of tomorrows now stretches before him.\n\n\u201cThe entire Senate sends our prayers to Elizabeth and Robin, and to so many family, friends, and former staff of Senator Dole.\n\n\u201cThe whole country stands with you \u2014 not only in grief, but in gladness and thanksgiving, for almost a century that was lived so patriotically, so gratefully, and so well.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:37:48Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=88B5C40A-16FB-4B38-9AAC-5FCF30E4FCB4"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8963958136737347, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}