[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 145 (Tuesday, October 13, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S12452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        RETIREMENT OF DAN COATS

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, at this desk on the floor of the Senate, I 
am surrounded by Indiana--the senior Senator from Indiana on my left, 
the junior Senator from Indiana on my right. Together, they have come 
to reflect the character of their sober, peaceful, and productive 
section of middle America. So close are the two Senators to one 
another, almost alone among Members of this body, they share offices in 
the State of Indiana, they share a strong and calm temperament, and 
they share a commitment to the people they represent and to the people 
of the United States.
  When this Congress adjourns in a few short hours, however, we will be 
losing one of those Senators, Dan Coats. Dan Coats has grown in wisdom 
and in the respect that his fellow Senators have for him in each of the 
10 years during which he has served in the Senate--10 years that seem 
to me, in retrospect, to be all too short. With Dan Coats, what you see 
is what you get, a man who lives and defends and projects solid 
American values, a love of family, a love of country, a love of God, a 
man who works hard, a man whose convictions are strong and unshakeable 
but who combines with those convictions a willingness to listen to 
views different from his own and to reach accommodations on matters of 
policy when those accommodations do not shake his solid philosophical 
foundation.
  During the course of his 10 years in the Senate, Dan Coats has become 
a good friend. I do not believe I can say that he is my closest friend 
in the Senate, nor I his. I can say, however, that I will greatly miss 
his calm good humor, his ability to get to the central point of any 
debate over policy or political philosophy, his rich dedication to the 
Constitution of the United States, to this body, and to the friends he 
has made in this body.
  We are only 100 men and women in the Senate, Mr. President. We see a 
great deal of one another, and we see ourselves and our colleagues 
under great stress and under high pressures. As a consequence, it is 
very difficult for any of us to hide the vital features of our 
character or our personality from one another. Dan Coats, I must say, 
has never attempted to hide anything about his character or about his 
personality, and with me and with all of us it has worn well. He is the 
kind of individual whom you like and respect more and more with each 
passing day, and it is for just that reason that even if this Congress 
ends up by accomplishing many of the purposes that each of us as 
individuals set out to accomplish at the beginning of this Congress, we 
will still go home with an empty heart, knowing that those of us who 
return in January will return without the daily advice, counsel, and 
friendship of a magnificent U.S. Senator, Dan Coats of Indiana.

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