[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 12, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S6139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO SENATOR BOB DOLE

  Mr. KYL. Bob Dole's statement upon announcing he would give up his 
Senate seat to run for the Presidency--that he is ``just a man''--packs 
a lot in a simple string of words, as is his habit. This phrase 
captures the modesty, the simplicity, and above all the 
straightforwardness and honesty of the Senator from Kansas. Men like 
Bob Dole achieve great things because they go at them directly, with no 
ifs, ands, or buts asking a lot of themselves and taking responsibility 
for the bottom line.
  Senator Dole's more than 35 years of service to the Congress of the 
United States have been filled with great accomplishments because he 
never let up, he brought people of different views together to hammer 
out legislation, and he was an honest broker trusted by everyone. My 
father, Congressman John Kyl of Iowa, served with then-Congressman Dole 
in the House of Reprentatives in the 1960's and knew him to be a man of 
leadership and utter integrity. As Congressman Dole, and later Senator 
Dole, learned his job as a legislator, he never lost that sense of 
being ``just a man'' from Russell, KS. He is not one to be dazzled by 
the bright lights, the pomp, and the power of Washington. He came armed 
with the simple virtues of his Kansas constituents, and those same 
virtues are evident in him today. He remains the embodiment of the 
heartland of America--a place much maligned by sophisticates, perhaps, 
but a place that still has the moral strengths that we Americans define 
ourselves by: dedication to duty, plain but honest speech, and an 
awareness that limited government requires of office holders that they 
never take their power for granted. When Bob Dole says that he is 
grateful to have served his fellow citizens, those are not empty words. 
We believe him.
  In his parting statement today, he hold us that ``there are some 
issues that transcend politics * * * and result in legislation that 
makes a real and lasting difference.'' Whether it is a matter of 
supporting civil rights, doggedly backing our military troops in an 
unpopular conflict in Indochina during the 1960's and 1970's, or 
ensuring access to public places for disabled Americans in the 1990's, 
he has often put aside partisanship and laid it on the line for the 
things he believes in. His statesmanship, his ability to come to 
closure for the sake of the common good, is well known to those of us 
who have worked with him inside this institution. But perhaps few 
outside of the Congress are aware of it. If everyone could know him as 
we do, they would see a man with an extraordinary capacity to see 
beyond the heated conflicts of the moment, to keep the big picture in 
mind, and to reach a consensus that yields practical results. If 
everyone knew him as well as his colleagues do, they would see that Bob 
Dole has everything it takes to be President of this country.
  Of the Senate he now says, on the day of his departure, ``It is a 
place that I have loved.'' Again, no rhetorical flourishes, just simple 
words of emotion, and all the more powerful for being unadorned. He 
reached the pinnacle of leadership among Senate Republicans, and for 
all too short a time has been leader of the Chamber itself. But he has 
walked away, and in characteristic style. Bob Dole is at the peak of 
his powers. But he moves on, ready to take on the biggest challenge in 
a life full of challenges. He has demonstrated--and in a remarkably 
dramatic way--that he is not one to rest on his laurels; instead, he is 
the kind of man who does honor to every contest he enters.

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