[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 131 (Monday, September 15, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5584-S5585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO BOB KERR

 Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, Rhode Islanders have opinions. 
Life in Rhode Island is a conversation, and in Rhode Island's ongoing 
public conversation about who we are as a community and as a nation, a 
thoughtful voice is suddenly missing. Bob Kerr, the long time metro 
columnist for the Providence Journal, has been let go from the paper.
  Bob wrote for Rhode Island's largest paper for 43 years. He spent 
that time seeking out the people and the stories that made up the 
fabric of our State and told those stories with empathy, humor, and 
blunt honesty. One of his fellow ProJo alumni described him as ``the 
Providence Journal's eloquent everyman.''
  When then-executive editor Joel Rawson first asked Bob to write a 
column, he had one simple instruction: ``I want to hear Rhode Island 
talking.'' And that is just what Bob gave us, 3 mornings a week for 
more than 20 years.
  Bob Kerr told the story of Rhode Island through the eyes of Rhode 
Islanders. He found people whose voices were not heard and gave them a 
giant microphone. He wrote about neighbors. He wrote about poor people. 
He wrote about musicians. He wrote about people looking for jobs and 
the people helping them find jobs. He even wrote about politicians. He 
wrote a lot about veterans. Bob served his country as a marine in 
Vietnam, and he paid close attention to the way we treat our 
servicemembers He reminded us to keep fighting for those who fought for 
us.
  Like an adopted conscience, Bob also kept us honest. One of his most 
popular features was the ``Clemency Coach,'' an imaginary broken-down 
bus with duct-taped seats and stuck windows that Bob cooked up to, as 
he put it, ``give people who have done publicly embarrassing things the 
time to get away and consider ways to make everything OK again.''
  ``It is a bus bound for nowhere in particular.''
  Once a season, Bob would roll out the latest Clemency Coach passenger 
list, a who's-who of people whose behavior warranted a slap on the 
wrist or worse. Bob called out public figures and private citizens 
alike, local notables and national celebrities. I myself was dispatched 
on the summer run of the Clemency Coach a year or two ago for putting 
my foot in my mouth here in the Senate.

[[Page S5585]]

  Bob's columns were a mirror that sometimes reflected our shortcomings 
but also our shared values--our decency, integrity and compassion for 
one another.
  Like his thousands of loyal readers, I am grateful for Bob Kerr's 
contribution to our Rhode Island community, and I wish him great luck 
and success in whatever is to come. For years, I have enjoyed, been 
informed by, been moved by, and learned from Bob's columns. They have 
helped make Rhode Island a better State and reminded us how good a 
State we are and can be. I hope he finds some way to keep doing them. 
He will have at least one reader.

                          ____________________