[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 191 (Tuesday, December 4, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7266-S7273]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING GEORGE H.W. BUSH

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I am honored to join my colleagues here to 
talk about President Bush. The outpouring of appreciation from the 
country has been significant.
  His son, the 43rd President, said that it takes a long time for the 
determinations of history to come in. I think the 41st President had 
almost 25 years for people to begin to put his Presidency in the right 
kind of historical reference, the right context of looking back and 
seeing not only what happened then but what has happened since then 
because of what happened then. I am pleased that he and Barbara were 
able to live long enough after that significant Presidency to see what 
happened.
  Certainly in Missouri, we claim part of the Bush family. His mother 
grew up in Missouri. The Walkers were from Missouri. He treated 
Missouri like it was one of the States that he was connected to by 
relationship. His grandfather and later his Uncle Herbert and the rest 
of the family would go in the summer to Walker's Point, named after 
that Missouri part of his family, just like the Walker Cup is named 
after that part of his family.
  The impact of his mother is pretty great. I heard the President 
talking the other day, in an interview with Jenna Bush, about whom he 
would look for when he got to Heaven. That was a couple of years ago, I 
think. He said: Well, if Barbara has gone there first, I think the 
right answer would be that I am going to look for her first. But then 
he said: I think my mom and my dad, and he said their daughter Robin, 
whom they lost when she was 3 years old.
  So his mother was an important part of his life. You could tell that 
when talking to him or to his children, when they remembered their 
grandmother, and you could see a lot of what she taught him in him, 
including that competitive nature. They don't name sporting cups after 
your family unless your family begins in competition. There was that 
competitive nature, but that was also based on never bragging about 
yourself. To be a real competitor like the President was and not brag 
about yourself is not always an easy thing, but, certainly, maybe to 
his political detriment, it was part of his upbringing.
  Another part of his upbringing included, in many ways, the best 
values of that World War II generation: Stand up straight, take 
responsibility, share credit, and take blame. Those were all part of 
who George Herbert Walker Bush had become--that idea that you should do 
what you are supposed to do and that idea of the importance of service 
to others. If you are going to be part of the team, if you are 
President Bush--I heard Jon Meacham, his biographer, say that he tried 
to kind of get into the depth of that: What about this commitment to 
service, and aren't there lots of ways to do that, and can't you have 
service without recognition? But President Bush, understanding the 
conflict, actually, in what he believed and the profession he had 
pursued said: Well, there is nothing wrong if you are going to be on 
the team to want to be captain of the team, whether it is captain of 
the Yale baseball team, which he was, or the President of the United 
States.
  The Yale baseball team leads me to another thing that the Presiding 
Officer and I know when we think about him; that is, the willingness as 
a young man to serve--and to serve immediately. In fact, at 17, still 
in high school, after Pearl Harbor, he talked about going to Canada to 
join the Canadian Air Corps because you could do that at 17, but in our 
country you couldn't join the Air Corps until 18. There was no Air 
Force yet. It was the Army Air Corps or the Navy Air Corps. He was 
persuaded by, I assume, his mom and dad, and others, by saying: Well, 
let's finish high school first, and then when you are 18, you can join 
the U.S. Air Corps. He did that, I believe, on his 18th birthday, or 
really close to his 18th birthday, to become then the youngest aviator 
in the war at the time when he got his flying credentials and serving 
in that way. That was part of that generation.
  Then, the war was over, and he and Barbara get married right before 
the war ended. Then he goes to college. That young man with a wife and 
a baby goes to college and becomes the captain of the baseball team. He 
was a man with really always great athletic ability and great grace in 
so many ways. He had grace under pressure and grace with others, but 
grace in sports, as well, and the ability to do that.
  Now, when you are the captain of the Yale baseball team, you can talk 
a lot about the team instead of yourself. When you decide to enter 
politics, there is an almost total contradiction between pursuing 
political office and not talking about yourself. It just doesn't quite 
work that way. You have to be willing to do that. We could always see 
in President Bush that reluctance to cross the line his mother had 
taught him and talk about himself and talk about his accomplishments. 
Even at his best, he was held back, in many ways, by that reluctance--
what he would see as bragging on himself.
  His public service was significant and broad-based. I believe you 
could make the case that perhaps no one had ever been better prepared 
to be President than George Herbert Walker Bush, but in that effort to 
become President, you have to run first. I remember in 1980 hearing 
Barbara Bush talking about this. I remember this because it was so 
unusual. I don't remember anybody else saying anything like this when 
they decided to run for President in 1980. When he ran for President, I 
heard Barbara Bush say this when asked: This guy has run for Congress 
once; it is the only elected office he has ever had, the House of 
Representatives and reelected. And she said: Yes, but George has a big 
family and thousands of friends.

  Now we see, at the end of his life, how that network of friends 
continued to be an important part of who he was, but I don't recall a 
single other person ever successfully running for President on the 
basis that he had a big family and lots of friends. But that was his 
unique way to associate with people, which included the thousands of 
letters he wrote. As the Vice President said yesterday, he wrote to 
friends over the years, and as it turned out, in retirement. He wrote 
letters to almost anybody who would write him. He would respond as, 
again, his mother probably taught him to do: If somebody takes the time 
to write you, you take the time to write them back. He was a man of 
appreciation and thank-you notes and sympathy notes. So that network of 
friends and family eventually became very important.
  Now, where I live in Missouri, we were the ultimate bellwether State 
for about 100 years. My friend from Ohio would come close to being able 
to take that crown for a while. Ohio has usually been a winner in 
Presidential elections. But for 100 years, from 1904 to 2004, we voted 
for the winner every time but one. So that last part of that--that last 
20 years of that time period--very much is the time period where 
President Bush 41 and Bush 43, for that matter, were part of national 
politics.
  Missouri would have been a significant place for him anyway. His 
brother lived there--his younger brother Bucky, who passed away in the 
last few years--and Ambassador Burt Walker was there. So there are lots 
of interrelated and connected family members.
  So we saw Candidate Bush and then Vice President Bush and then 
President Bush in our State a lot. I was the elected secretary of State 
when he was Vice President, and I was the secretary of State when he 
was President. So I had the chance to benefit from knowing him.
  I had a chance to go to Walker's Point a few times and to go to 
church with the Bushes. If you were with the Bushes on a Sunday, either 
you were

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going to be left by yourself or you were going to go to church, because 
that was as much a part of who President Bush was as anything else--
maybe a bigger part than anything else.
  He said that in his faith--the Episcopal faith. Maybe he wasn't about 
sharing publicly his faith, but he was absolutely committed to his 
faith. In fact, he raised the money to build a chapel at Camp David 
during his Presidency. There had not been a chapel there before. A 
number of Presidents, starting with Franklin Roosevelt, had used Camp 
David, but it was President Bush who decided: Well, church services on 
Sunday in the cafeteria could be in a better place; let's do what we 
can.
  So he raised the money privately to build the chapel that is there 
today.
  The Missouri connection goes a little bit further. Not only did 
Missouri vote for President Bush in 1988--and if my story is going to 
have any truth to it, I would have to point out that Missouri voted for 
Bill Clinton in 1992, because we were still voting for the winner by 
pretty much the margin of whatever the national average was in the last 
50 years of that 100-year saga.
  After Desert Storm, President Bush looked around to find a place to 
do the first Fourth of July parade, and he came to Marshfield, MO, in 
the county where I was born--Webster County. I was going to be grand 
marshal of the parade that year, as I recall, but when it became 
apparent that the President wanted to come to be in that parade, I was 
more than willing to concede that he should be the grand marshal of 
that parade, and I walked not too far behind him.
  Then, in 1992, after the convention--I believe it was the first 
kickoff--the first campaign kickoff was at Branson, MO, and I had the 
chance to be there with him. We went to a country music show at the Moe 
Bandy Theater. Loretta Lynn was sitting with the President and Mrs. 
Bush, and their good friend from Texas, Moe Bandy, was performing. That 
was a part of America and a part of our music that the President loved. 
I think the kickoff rally itself was outside in the parking lot, at 
Silver Dollar City, and the Herschend family was there. JoDee Herschend 
just this week died, as well, after a long fight with cancer.
  All of those connections go back to the big family and thousands of 
friends. There was nowhere in that matrix that I just talked about 
where President Bush didn't leave with more friends than he had when he 
came--friends whom many times he figured out how to develop a lifelong 
connection to.
  All of us could use more of that skill. There is social media and the 
quick response, but the letter writing and the phone calling and the 
thinking about when you need to reach out to people in a way they can 
transparently feel it continues to be important. The other things are 
not unimportant, either, but his connectedness took a little more 
effort than some of ours do.
  Let me just say, in terms of preparation and how it paid off, he was 
CIA Director, a Member of Congress, one of the very first Envoys to 
China, before we had official relationships, Envoy to the United 
Nations, Vice President of the United States, and his making 
connections and contacts and friendships.
  There was Desert Storm. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait, and the 
President says: ``This will not stand.'' He assembled what may have 
been the greatest coalition of nations at any time. The nations that 
weren't willing to fight were often willing to help others to pay for 
the fight. I don't know if anybody else could have put that coalition 
together the way President Bush did, but he put that coalition together 
with maximum force and to guarantee minimum loss and suddenly freed 
Kuwait and showed that the United States was still going to stand up 
for people who couldn't stand up for themselves.
  Then, there was the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have just enough 
time now to look back. I have heard many others over the last few days 
talk about how that could have gone so badly wrong for all of the other 
countries that were trying to emerge from the domination of Russia and 
the Soviet Union. But George Herbert Walker Bush was on the phone, 
reaching out, talking to leaders, saying the things that actually had 
just been predicted by the West Germans themselves to be impossible--
that, somehow, East Germany could become part of West Germany. That is 
exactly what happened. The President encouraged, stood beside, and went 
out of the way to be sure that Helmut Kohl, the leader of West Germany, 
had the kind of support that he and his government needed. He reached 
out to bring this country, which had been isolated for 40 years, back 
as part of their country and into the country. So all of these East 
European countries that were emerging from Soviet domination had a 
chance to move from domination to democracy. That would not have 
happened the way it happened if somebody less prepared and less capable 
had been there. Character paid off then, and character is being 
recognized today for the value it has. As thousands have walked by the 
casket in the Rotunda of the Capitol of the United States of America, 
millions of others have thought about what a life of character means, 
about what the willingness to take responsibility means, and about how 
important it is to share credit, to take blame, to be prepared, and to 
believe there is great value and virtue in serving others. That is what 
George Herbert Walker Bush did.

  As we think back at the impact he and Mrs. Bush and their family have 
had on the country, there is a great lesson to be learned. I hope we 
are all taking time to learn it.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, the Presiding Officer knows I spent a 
little time in the Navy. So did my father. My father enlisted in the 
Navy right before World War II broke out. He was not 18.
  George Herbert Walker Bush, I think on his 18th birthday, just out of 
high school, enlisted in the Navy as a seaman second class. About a 
year later, he was off to Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, where I 
earned my wings as a naval flight officer a long time ago. He became an 
ensign, I think at the age of 19, and became, maybe, the youngest Navy 
pilot around that time that they had in the Navy, if you can believe 
that. A year or so later, I think in September of 1943, he was on the 
USS San Jacinto in the Pacific and flew avenger bombers with the 3rd 
Fleet and 6th Fleet. When you think about it, at that point in time he 
must have been about 20 years old, flying avenger bombers. That is 
pretty amazing.
  When I was 20 years, I was a sophomore or junior at Ohio State. The 
idea of flying missions, as we did stuff in the summers with Navy ROTC 
in Corpus Christi, flying airplanes and so forth--to be flying missions 
in the Pacific theater in the middle of World War II is pretty 
astounding.
  In 1944, he would have been maybe 20 years old, not quite 21. He was 
a lieutenant JG. I think I made lieutenant JG when I was 22 or so. But 
later that year, in 1944, when he was still about 20 years old, he was 
shot down off the coast of Chichijima by a Japanese anti-aircraft flier 
while flying a mission to bomb an enemy radio site located on the Bonin 
Islands about 600 miles south of Japan. In some of my missions during 
the Vietnam war, we flew by there. He was rescued by the U.S. submarine 
Finback after he had floated around the ocean for a while in an 
inflated raft. God bless the folks on the Finback. They somehow found 
out he was out there and found him. It was like finding a needle in a 
haystack. I have done a fair number of search and rescue missions out 
of a P-3 airplane. To find somebody on a little dingy from an airplane 
is hard enough, but to find them from a submarine is even more 
difficult. It is miraculous to me that on September 2, 1944, they found 
him and saved him.
  In November of 1944, he returned to his ship, the USS San Jacinto, 
and participated in operations in the Philippines until his squadron 
was sent home. I have some fond memories of operating missions in the 
South China Sea out of the Philippines and off the coast of Southeast 
Asia. But his career took him there. I think at that time he was about 
21, an old guy, in the Navy.
  A year or so later, in September of 1945, he was discharged from the 
Navy. He had served 58 combat missions during World War II, for which 
he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. You don't get much 
better than a Distinguished Flying Cross. So there were three air 
medals--I had one, and this guy had three--and the Presidential Unit 
Citation awarded to his

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ship, of which he was a member for a number of years. That is one heck 
of a record for a guy who signed up as a seaman second class at the age 
of 18 and 3 years later finished up after flying all those missions 
when he was 21. I am still thinking about what I was doing when I was 
21. I wasn't doing this. I was looking forward to going into the Navy 
on Active Duty and ended up in Southeast Asia with John McCain, from 
Arizona, one of our colleagues and the Presiding Officer's wingman in 
the Senate for a number of years.
  I had never met George Bush when he was on Active Duty or in the 
Navy. I was not yet born. My dad served about the same time, never at 
the same time at the same duty station, although they both spent a fair 
amount of time in airplanes. My dad was a chief petty officer.
  My guess is that George Bush got pretty good leadership training from 
his parents, but, starting from the age of 18, the Navy took over and 
provided him with exceptional leadership training. I would like to 
think some others--including John McCain, hopefully yours truly, and 
some others with whom we served, not just in World War II but in 
subsequent wars, including Vietnam and even today--received great 
leadership training in the military. George Herbert Walker Bush was 
trained, as was I and as were many of our peers, that leaders are 
humble, not haughty. Think about that: Leaders are humble, not haughty. 
Speeches were given last week as we gathered in the Capitol, and 
thousands of people have walked by his casket since. If there was ever 
a leader I have met who was humble, not haughty, it was George Herbert 
Walker Bush.

  He was trained that leaders lead by their example. It is not do as I 
say, but do as I do. That is what he was like. He had the heart of a 
servant throughout his life. I can't remember all of the different 
roles in which he served. Maybe our Presiding Officer can help me; 
maybe the Senator from Tennessee who has joined me can fill in the 
blanks. But it was a pretty amazing career, which includes jobs I 
wasn't even mindful of. A lot of us remember he was head of the CIA. 
Everybody knows he was President and Vice President. But there were so 
many other jobs--Ambassador to China and a host of other challenging 
positions--that he fulfilled every step of his life.
  He was a Congressman and served in the House for 4 years. This is 
really instructive; if Senator Alexander would correct me if I am 
wrong, my recollection is that he ran for the U.S. Senate not once but 
twice and was not successful either time. Sometimes we learn more when 
we are unsuccessful than when we are successful.
  He was the kind of leader who thought that part of being a leader is 
staying out of step when everybody else is marching to the wrong tune. 
He was the kind of leader who felt that a leader should be aspirational 
and appeal to people's better angels. He was the kind of leader who 
surrounded himself with really good people. I have known a bunch of 
them, and so have some of you. He surrounded himself with exceptional 
people.
  He was the sort of leader who, when the team did well, he would give 
credit to the team, and when the team fell short, he would take the 
blame. He was one of those leaders who actually sought to unite people, 
not divide people. We hear a lot these days about building bridges and 
building walls. He was a bridge builder, never much for building walls.
  One of my favorite quotes about politics is that our friends come and 
go, but our enemies accumulate. All of those years, the people he ran 
against--Bill Clinton certainly comes to mind, but others, as well--had 
great affection for him and loved him. There is some secret there that 
the rest of us could probably learn from.
  The other thing I am especially mindful of him as a leader is that he 
was interested in doing what was right--not what was easy or expedient, 
but what was right. He treated other people the way he wanted to be 
treated--the Golden Rule. He was interested in doing things well, and 
he wanted people around him to do things well--sort of like, if it 
isn't perfect, make it better. He was not one to give up.
  For those reasons, and others, I would like to say that he was the 
kind of leader we need more of in both parties--here, in the executive 
branch, and in other branches of our government. We could use more like 
him, men and women. But those of us who were lucky enough to be around 
him, to learn from him, and to see him in action, whether he was 
successful or not--it was a great opportunity for us.
  I have the opportunity now to serve as the senior Democrat on the 
Environment and Public Works Committee; our chair is John Barrasso. The 
chairman of the HELP Committee is here on the floor today, Senator 
Alexander. He and I, in earlier days--when he was a member of the 
Public Works Committee--worked on the Clear Skies legislation. 
President George W. Bush, the son of President George Herbert Walker 
Bush, proposed something called Clear Skies legislation--sulfur 
dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury. As I recall, Senator Alexander 
and I, maybe along with Senator Voinovich of Ohio, worked on something. 
I call it ``Really Clear Skies'' because sulfur dioxide, nitrogen 
oxide, and mercury make CO2, carbon dioxide.
  Much has been made of late of the environmental record of Richard 
Nixon. I never thought I would be extolling the virtues of Richard 
Nixon as our President, but I have quite a bit in the last several 
years as the senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works 
Committee. I am the only Democrat I know who quotes President Nixon. 
Richard Nixon said, among other things, that the only people who don't 
make mistakes are people who don't do anything. Isn't that good? The 
only people who don't make mistakes are people who don't do anything. 
We all make mistakes. I probably learn more from my mistakes than from 
the things I have done right.
  People talk about the environmental legacy of Richard Nixon. He 
signed legislation creating the EPA; he signed legislation creating the 
Clean Air Act; he signed legislation creating the Clean Water Act. He 
did some amazing stuff, for a Republican President, with respect to the 
environment.
  Not as much has been made of George Herbert Walker Bush's 
environmental record, but I have some notes that I am going to refer to 
here to help refresh my memory and maybe expand a little on what others 
know.
  In the House of Representatives, when we were working on the 1990 
amendments of the Clean Air Act, I had the opportunity to coauthor a 
couple of little pieces of that legislation, which he actually signed, 
so I feel a sense of ownership. He, as President, signed into law the 
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
  On the Friday after Thanksgiving, a couple of weeks ago, here in our 
Nation's Capital, 13 Federal agencies released a major report laying 
out the alarming impact that climate change is having on the 
environment, our public health, our economic growth, and our weather. I 
never thought I would see the day when we are measuring rainfall by the 
foot instead of by the inches. I never thought I would be seeing 
wildfires in California, Montana, Washington State, and Oregon that are 
bigger than my State of Delaware. I never thought I would see this many 
category 5 hurricanes. I never thought I would see two 500-year floods 
in Ellicott City, MD, just a short way up the road here. They didn't 
come every 500 years; they came one year after the other. I never 
thought I would see that kind of weather.
  These Federal agencies put out a report a couple of weeks ago, laying 
out some of the alarming impacts that climate change is having on our 
environment, public health, economic growth, and our weather. That 
report is known as the ``National Climate Assessment.'' It is put out 
every 4 years as a result of an act signed in 1990 called the Global 
Change Research Act of 1990. Who signed it? Why, it was President 
George Herbert Walker Bush who signed it into law all those years ago.
  The 41st President raised the alarm decades ago about a threat that 
he referred to as the ``ozone hole.'' That is what he called it, the 
ozone hole. The Clean Air Act of 1990, which he signed into law, hoped 
to implement the Montreal Protocol, a landmark international treaty to 
deal with the problem. The protocol is highly widely regarded as a 
success. The treaty is widely regarded as a success. A couple of years 
after that, he helped form the United Nations framework. If I am not

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mistaken, I think he was maybe our Ambassador to the United Nations as 
well.
  In 1992, he helped form the United Nations Framework Convention on 
Climate Change, which has now been embraced by every nation on Earth 
and is taking place this very week in Poland. Countries from throughout 
the world are there.
  I mentioned earlier the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act, which 
turned out to be some of the most important environmental laws that we 
have on our books in this country, and that law enabled the government 
to control the nearly 200 toxic substances that are present in our air 
and pose threats to human health. That same law paved the way for 
cleaner running cars and clean fuels that have dramatically reduced 
pollution from smog.
  I can remember when I was in the Navy, spending part of the summer at 
the Long Beach Naval Station on a big jumbo tanker. I like to run, and 
I remember running close to L.A. in the summer--late sixties. I 
remember on some days that I ran, I felt I was doing more damage to my 
lungs than I was doing good for my body, running and breathing that 
kind of air. The air in California was awful. It is not perfect today, 
but it is a whole lot better, except when there are all these fires 
they have to put up with.
  According to the EPA, the 1990 amendments of the Clean Air Act, over 
the first 20 years of enactment, have also prevented 160,000 premature 
deaths, reduced illnesses and diseases related to air pollution, and 
spurred $2 trillion in overall economic benefits.
  I will end with this. In February of 1990, President Bush said this 
about our changing climates. I want to quote him. He said:

       We all know that human activities are changing the 
     atmosphere in unexpected and in unprecedented ways. Much 
     remains to be done. Many questions remain to be answered. 
     Together, we have a responsibility to ourselves and the 
     generations to come to fulfill our stewardship obligations.

  Those are his words. Those words and the positions he took and the 
work his administration did on this front show real leadership and, 
maybe, the courage to stay out of step when everyone else is marching 
to the wrong tune and a willingness to step up and address that 
unprecedented challenge that is before us.
  He lived to be 94. He was active and vibrant almost to the end. I 
think a number of us have had the opportunity to serve as Governor with 
both of his sons and to know them as friends and leaders of our 
country. The legacy of their dad lives on through the children he and 
Barbara helped raise.
  We miss his personality. We miss his warmth and his good humor. We 
miss his affection, and we miss his leadership. I hope our colleagues 
and, certainly, I can learn from his example and learn again over and 
over again from the example he set to do the right thing, even when it 
is not easy.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am delighted to hear the Senator from 
Delaware discuss some aspects of President Bush's time that aren't as 
well remembered, including his amendments to the Clean Air Act, on 
which the Senator from Delaware and I have worked.
  In June of 1992, President George Herbert Walker Bush and his wife 
Barbara were walking across the South Lawn on a hot, sunny day to make 
a major announcement about school choice. Barbara turned to the 
President and said: George, you have on the wrong pants.
  The President of the United States turned around, walked back in the 
White House, changed into the proper suit, came back out and made the 
announcement, one of the biggest of his time as President--to ask the 
Congress to provide one-half billion dollars to States and cities like 
Milwaukee and Wisconsin, which wanted to give low-income families 
choices of better schools for their children.
  Before that, I can recall a 3 p.m. or so meeting on January 17, 1991. 
The meeting was about educational assessment--a very dull subject. The 
President had called it in the Cabinet Room. Governor Carper will 
remember educational assessment from his days as Governor. The meeting 
went on and on. The President got up and left and came back after about 
10 minutes. The rest of us thought very little about it. It turned out 
that, later, we found out he was calling Gorbachev in the Soviet Union 
to let him know in advance that the United States was about to start 
bombing Baghdad at about 5:30 that afternoon U.S. time. He had 
constructed and put on the public schedule that meeting on educational 
assessment so that the world wouldn't know what was about to happen.
  A few weeks later, we were having lunch, and he was mulling over the 
prospect of putting 1 million American military men and women on the 
ground in the Middle East in the first Gulf war. He had a special 
feeling about that because of his background as a combat pilot in World 
War II. He knew what it meant to risk even one American life in that 
exercise.
  All of us have memories and stories we could tell about the 
President, but I want to talk about three aspects of his service very 
briefly: No. 1, gentleman; No. 2, well prepared; No. 3, pioneer--a 
pioneer especially in education.
  I have suggested to Jon Meacham, the extraordinary biographer of 
President George H.W. Bush, that a better title for his book might be 
``The Last Gentleman.'' Saying that to an author is like saying: You 
ought to rename your baby something else. That is not a very prudent 
thing to say.
  I hope it is not true that he is the last gentleman, but his 
temperament and conduct when he won and when he lost in war and in 
peace, with adversaries and friends, remind us that you can be tough, 
you can win the Presidency, you can be a combat pilot in a world war, 
and you can still treat others with respect, which he unfailingly did.
  I was thinking last night as we stood outside on the steps and 
watched the casket being brought up--a beautiful evening, the sunset 
looking out over the Library of Congress, looking out over the Supreme 
Court--that with all the rancor we sometimes have here, as we work out 
difficult problems, we are pretty lucky to live in this country. We are 
pretty lucky to have the form of government that we have. We are 
extraordinarily fortunate that we can produce men and women, like 
George H.W. Bush, who bring out the best of us, which leads me to my 
second point: What I think of when I think of our former President, and 
those are the words ``well prepared.''
  We have had lots of different kinds of Presidents of the United 
States with varying backgrounds, and many have been successful. It is 
hard to say exactly what will make a President successful. I actually 
think temperament has more to do with it than anything else. What we 
had in President George H.W. Bush may have been the best prepared 
President in our history: Congressman, candidate for the Senate, head 
of his national political party, the first Ambassador to China, head of 
the United Nations, Vice President of the United States, head of the 
Central Intelligence Agency.
  If you are going to put somebody through a training course, a boot 
camp in order to be President of the United States, that is what you 
would do. You would take someone of extraordinary intellect, someone 
who may have graduated, in 3 years, Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, with 
extraordinary courage, and someone who could fly combat--the youngest 
aviator in World War II. You put them through that boot camp and say: 
Now you are the President of the United States.
  How fortunate we were that he happened to be the one who came along 
then because the things he accomplished in his 4 years, the things he 
presided over, the things he led us to do as a country weren't that 
easy.
  Take the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It is a very dangerous 
situation. They have a lot of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union and a 
history of antagonism toward much of Europe and the United States. But 
President Bush, because of his temperament and his skill and the 
extraordinary team he had around him, presided over that in a way that 
allowed Mr. Gorbachev and the Soviet Union to come apart. It could have 
easily gone in another direction.
  There was the reunification of Germany. You can be sure that France 
was skeptical about the reunification of Germany. Wouldn't you be, as 
well, if you had been involved in two World Wars in that century with 
Germany?

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  Margaret Thatcher was quietly opposed to the unification of Germany, 
according to Vice President Quayle, who should know about such things. 
Mr. Kohl, from Germany, was for it. Our President had to know those 
individuals well enough and be adept enough to preside over the 
reunification of Germany and the disintegration of the Soviet Union at 
the same time.
  Balancing the budget wasn't popular within the Republican Party. When 
you look at the portraits of the Presidents in the White House, you 
often think, what did that President do that went beyond his base--that 
his original supporters might not have agreed with but that put the 
country first? When you look at Nixon, you think China. When you look 
at Reagan, you think the Berlin Wall.
  When you look at George Bush, you think a number of things, but one 
of the things he did was balance the budget in a way that most 
Republicans didn't like. He paid a price for it when he ran for 
reelection, but the country and President Clinton, during the 1990s, 
benefited greatly from that fact.
  Then, as Senator Carper pointed out, he led the amendments of the 
Clean Air Act. I was in East Tennessee these last few weeks. We like 
the fact that you can see the Great Smoky Mountains, and they are not 
the ``great smoggy mountains'' anymore. That is true because of the 
Clean Air Act, which, more than anything else, has required coal plants 
when they operate to put pollution control equipment on them. They can 
still operate. There is nothing to keep a coal plant from operating in 
this country as long as you put pollution control equipment for 
mercury, nitrogen, and sulfur on it. Then they can be perfectly clean. 
That doesn't include carbon, but carbon you can't see. We like to see 
the mountains.
  There were the decisions that were made that had to do with exhausts 
from trucks and cars. America is healthier, cleaner, and we can attract 
businesses to our State now that our air is clean. Before that, it was 
a problem.
  The Americans with Disabilities Act was a difficult law to pass and a 
difficult law for many parts of our country to accept and, frankly, pay 
for. Think of the lives it has changed. No one who wasn't well-prepared 
for the Presidency could have passed that.
  As I think of President Bush, I think first of a gentleman; second, 
well prepared; finally, a pioneer in education. Most of the time, when 
we think of President Bush, we think of his skills in foreign policy 
because they were considerable, and the challenges were great. For 
example, I didn't mention the Gulf War a moment ago--well, I did in a 
couple of cases, but I didn't mention putting 1 million troops on the 
ground, getting the rest of the world to pay for most of the war, and 
then deciding not to go into Baghdad and get mired down there. Those 
were decisions that a skilled, well-prepared man would do.
  He was also a pioneer in education, and that is what I would like to 
talk about. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush assembled all the 
Nation's Governors in Charlottesville to talk about education. Terry 
Branstad, the current Ambassador to China, was then the Chairman of the 
Governors. Out of that summit came national education goals that every 
child by the year 2000 would learn math, science, history, and 
geography in a proficient way.

  President Bush then came up with America 2000 in the last 2 years of 
his term. I was Education Secretary when he launched America 2000. That 
was to help States and communities reach those national education goals 
State by State, community by community. So we had Nebraska 2000 and 
Nashville 2000 as Democrats and Republicans sought to do that. The 
importance of it was that President George H.W. Bush understood that to 
have lasting reform in education, it has to be owned by the States. It 
has to be owned by the community.
  We saw that in the recent exercise in common core standards. Common 
core was developed by the Governors. It was moving through the country 
State by State by State. Then, when the Federal Government mandated it, 
in effect, there was a great rebellion because there wasn't buy-in.
  It was the same situation with teacher evaluation. I led a fight to 
evaluate Tennessee teachers, and it was the hardest thing I was ever 
involved in. There was a big fight with the National Education 
Association, but we did it, and 10,000 teachers went up the career 
ladder. They bought into it. When it is ordered from Washington, they 
don't buy into it, and President Bush understood that. So his national 
education goals, his voluntary national standards, and his voluntary 
national tests were all voluntary. They were not imposed from 
Washington, DC. He created an environment, through America 2000, where 
States, cities, and communities could adopt them, and they were 
lasting.
  Most of the steps that States, including my State of Tennessee, have 
taken to make schools better in the last 30 years were either started 
by or encouraged by George H.W. Bush since the National Governors 
Summit in 1989. That includes charter schools. In 1991 and 1992, 
President Bush encouraged every community to create start-from-scratch 
schools, as he called it, and many did. He created New American Schools 
Development Corporation with the help of Deputy Education Secretary 
David Kearns and raised about $70 million and gave grants to that.
  My last act as Education Secretary for President Bush was to write 
every school superintendent and say: Why don't you try one of these new 
charter schools that the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party has 
created. There were only 10 at the time in 1992. Those start-from-
scratch schools suggested by President George H.W. Bush are now 5,000 
charter schools in the country or about 5 percent of all the public 
schools in America.
  Then came school choice. I began with the story of his walking across 
the south lawn to announce the GI bill for kids, to give money to 
States and districts to encourage school choice. The Democratic 
Congress, at the time, didn't appropriate the dollars he asked for, for 
start-from-scratch schools, and they didn't appropriate the money for 
school choice, but his persistent advocacy using the bully pulpit gave 
us national goals, national standards, national tests, accountability 
systems, school choice, charter schools--all of that--and the 
difference was, he insisted we not have a national school board in the 
process.
  His successors all tended to have Washington edicts--President 
Clinton, President George W. Bush, and President Obama. I can 
understand why they felt that way. They were eager to see results, and 
so they said let Washington order Texas, Tennessee, and Wisconsin to do 
it, but, unfortunately, that backfires. That backfired on common core 
and backfired on teacher evaluation. As soon as we stepped back and 
used advocacy instead of edicts, as President Bush understood, we got 
more lasting results.
  He was well prepared, a gentleman, and a pioneer of education. Some 
people are suggesting he might have been the most effective one-term 
President in the history of the Presidency. He could very well be, when 
you add it all up, with the Gulf war handled like it was, the 
reunification of Germany, the successful disintegration of the Soviet 
Union, the clean air laws, the Americans with Disabilities Act, 
pioneering in education with America 2000, balancing the budget. That 
is a lot to do in 4 years. Maybe James K. Polk is the only one I can 
think of who might give him a good run for his money in terms of that 
accolade.
  I remember when the Gulf War was over and President Bush came to 
speak to the Congress. I will close with this. It was the first time I 
had a chance to sit and listen to a Presidential address as a Member of 
the Cabinet. I remember thinking after that wonderful victory that was 
so well done--with a million men and women on the ground and very few 
casualties; the rest of the world paid for most of the war; we avoided 
going into Baghdad. It was a very successful operation. The President's 
approval rating was at 91 percent. I remember thinking, I wish he would 
say: Now that we have won the war, let's turn our attention to home and 
apply the same sort of energy to America 2000, and then make America 
2000 his entire domestic program. Perhaps it would have been difficult 
for Bill Clinton to defeat him that year if that would have been his 
domestic agenda. No one will ever know.
  What we do know is, he was a gentleman; he was as well prepared as 
any

[[Page S7271]]

President in history for the job; he served at a time when we needed 
that preparation because the challenges were immense; he was a pioneer 
in education; and he may have been the most successful one-term 
President in American history--a man who put the country first and whom 
we all admired. George H.W. Bush.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Johnson). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I join my friend, the Senator from 
Tennessee, in saying a few words about the service of George Herbert 
Walker Bush. I would note the difference between him and me, though, is 
he, having served as Education Secretary and worked here under Howard 
Baker and having had a chance to work with and watch and listen to 
George Herbert Walker Bush firsthand, has the advantage over me.
  I certainly know the Bush family and President Bush ``41'' from my 
experience in Texas. They were the dominant family and influence in 
politics in Texas--certainly during the time I grew up in politics.
  I appreciate the comments the Senator from Tennessee has made. He and 
I had a conversation about what our side of the aisle needs, which is 
to do more in the area of supporting public education and which is, I 
think, probably at the top of the list of most people's concerns.

  Certainly, when you look at what happened in the midterm elections--
particularly in the suburbs--and you talk to people about what 
motivated them one way or the other, education had to be way up high on 
that list. We simply need to find a way of working together and coming 
up together with creative ways to demonstrate our support for public 
education, and I think our constituents will respond very well to that.
  Certainly, the Senator from Tennessee, as chairman of the Health, 
Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, who is responsible for a lot 
of the healthcare-oriented legislation that emanates from this body--
and that is another area where, frankly, we didn't do as good a job as 
we could or should have done, explaining what we were for and what we 
could do actually to help bring premiums down and make healthcare more 
accessible. So I appreciate the contributions of the Senator from 
Tennessee to this body and his comments particularly about this great 
man. I think it is important to say he was not just a great man but a 
good man, George Herbert Walker Bush.
  We know, to his family, he was a loving and caring father, 
grandfather, and great-grandfather. To his country, he was a devoted 
public servant who fought to defend our freedoms and led the Nation at 
the end of the Cold War and at the fall of the Berlin Wall.
  Every time I think about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, I think 
about my dad who was a B-17 pilot in World War II. He was shot down on 
his 26th bombing mission over Nazi Germany. He was stationed in 
Molesworth, England. He and his fellow crew in the 303rd Bomb Group in 
the Eighth Air Force would fly their bombing missions from England--in 
this case, Molesworth Air Force Base across the English Channel and 
drop their bombs in Germany in an effort to bring an end to that 
terrible, terrible war.
  Unfortunately, my dad died before the Berlin Wall came down. That is 
one of my regrets; that he was unable to see what ultimately happened 
as a result of that terrible war in World War II. One expert--I read 
one of his books recently--calculated that 31 million people died in 
World War II. It is a shocking number. We need to be reminded of what 
the horrible wages of war can be--20 million people died in the Soviet 
Union alone. I know that staggers our imagination. We need to remember 
our history or, in the words of a wise man, we will be condemned to 
relive it. Certainly, George Herbert Walker Bush's contribution to 
ending the Cold War and bringing down the Berlin Wall are one of his 
most notable achievements.
  He served first as a war hero. He actually enlisted in the Navy after 
the attack at Pearl Harbor. He, like a lot of other young men, decided 
this was the time to come to the aid of their country. After nearly 
losing his life after being shot down but being saved by rescuing 
forces, he came back home and, like so many of the ``greatest 
generation,'' he went to work and raised a family.
  In my dad's case, he, too, was part of the ``greatest generation.'' 
Fortunately, he got out of the prisoner of war camp and met my mother 
and married and had a family. He continued his education and, like so 
many of the ``greatest generation,'' made enormous contributions to 
this country in the post-World War II era that we are benefiting from 
even today.
  We also know George Herbert Walker Bush represented his fellow 
Americans starting as a Congressman in Houston, TX. Then he moved on to 
be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was Vice President. 
He was President.
  It has been said that George Herbert Walker Bush was the best 
prepared person ever to have served as President by virtue of his 
experience and his resume. I think there is a lot of truth to that.
  Alluding to the time in the Navy, you can say he was an anchor for 
our country during tumultuous times--steady and strong.
  While he was a fierce defender of his principles and ideals, he was 
sometimes seen as a quiet soldier. Some people even commented that he 
was too nice a person to be President. I think that is a misconception. 
He was, it is true, both a good man and a great leader, but I think he 
showed us you could be both. Not all great leaders are good men. We are 
all flawed, of course, but he showed that you could be both a good man 
and a great leader.
  President Bush carried the lessons he learned in the Navy with him. 
Specifically, we heard from the Vice President yesterday at the 
ceremony in the Rotunda talking about a concept known to Navy pilots as 
the acronym CAVU, which stands for ``ceiling and visibility 
unlimited.'' I only mention this again after the Vice President talked 
about it yesterday because President Bush mentioned it on his 80th 
birthday. He said it summed up his attitude about his life perfectly.
  He said:

       But, you see, that is where my life is now. Thanks to my 
     family and my friends, my life is CAVU.

  Through all he did, his compassion, his love of country, his basic 
humanity, and strong optimism shone through, which made him such an 
attractive political figure. One reason for his tremendous success was 
because people liked him, and they believed in him. They believed he 
was doing what he did for the right reasons.
  After a long and tough campaign for his second term as President--a 
campaign which he lost--he left a letter to newly elected President 
Bill Clinton. There has been some social media circulating this letter, 
but I think it is worth noting because it is a snapshot into his 
character and the type of man he was.
  He wrote to President Clinton:

       Your success now is our country's success. I am rooting 
     hard for you.

  It takes a big man to say that to your competitor after a tough, 
losing campaign, but, again, this is a window into the character of a 
good and great man. Just like everything else he did, it was gracious 
and sincere. This letter conveyed the same sense of ``it is not about 
me, it is about the country.'' In a word, it is about patriotism--a 
word that embodies President Bush so well. He was the type of man who 
makes us look at our own lives and ask, what more can I do for my 
country and for my country men and women we all love?

  After graduating from college, he went to Midland, TX. It was kind of 
an improbable place to go in those days, but he wanted to get involved 
in the oil business. Later, after his successes in Midland, TX, in the 
Permian Basin, which continues to be one of the greatest reserves of 
oil and gas in the United States, he went on to Houston and grew his 
business and ultimately, as I said earlier, ran for Congress.
  Even though Texas was an adopted home for him, Texans loved and 
embraced him, as we did the entire Bush family. We were privileged to 
have President Bush as one of our own. He once said: ``I am a Texan and 
an American . . . what more could a man ask?'' I don't think anyone 
could have said it better. Throughout his time in public service and 
even afterward, he could have moved anywhere in the world, but he chose 
to live his life in Texas and in

[[Page S7272]]

the warm embrace of the State and the people he loved.
  President Bush felt a kindred spirit in Texas A&M University, 
choosing it first to bear his legacy through his Presidential library 
and a graduate school of government and public service and then later 
to be his and Barbara Bush's final resting place. I think President 
Bush identified with the university's unique culture, including its 
inculcation of patriotic values and the emphasis it places on hard work 
and public service.
  President Bush taught us all that there is nothing more powerful in 
life than the power of a good example. He challenged all of us, and he 
still does by the standards he set for himself.
  Joined today by my colleague from Texas, Senator Cruz, we introduced 
a resolution recognizing the nearly 30 years of public service 
President Bush devoted to our State and our Nation.
  President Bush is in the Nation's Capital one last time, where many 
have and will continue to have the opportunity to pay their respects 
and give their thanks for his extraordinary life.
  President Bush once wrote in a letter to his mother: ``Tell the 
truth. Don't blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive. 
Stay the course.'' President Bush never chose the easy road to 
sacrifice doing what he thought was just and right. In the words of 
Scripture, he fought the good fight, he finished the race, and he kept 
the faith.
  In his book ``All the Best,'' he writes that he wanted a plain 
gravestone like the ones in Arlington Cemetery, with his Navy number on 
the back. He also requested that a quotation be placed there as well: 
``He loved Barbara very much.'' This is the man he was. I know he has 
gone on to join the love of his life, Barbara, and their daughter 
Robin. A truly honorable and gracious man has gone home to God.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I am honored to follow the Senator from 
Texas and to have shared time with President Bush, as he has, and 
appreciate very much his service to this Senate and this country.
  You know, the hardest thing they ever ask you to do in public office 
is eulogize someone you don't even know. But because you are a Senator 
and they think you have a name that everybody back home knows, they 
think that would be a good idea. It is the hardest thing for a Senator 
to do.
  The easiest thing to do is to be asked to eulogize somebody you know 
and love. You don't have to look up things and read things and do a 
biography. But that, too, is also very hard. It is hard to hold back 
the tears when you talk about the experiences you had with someone who 
has gone on to a better place. That is the role I am in today.
  George Herbert Walker Bush did so many things for me in my lifetime 
that I can't begin to count them or recount them all for you, but I am 
going to tell a few of the stories. You have all heard about how he was 
in the CIA, how many planes he shot down, and how many times he did 
whatever he did. We all know he has a resume that is equal to none. I 
mean, nobody has one equal to his. We also know, those of us who knew 
him--and I know Senator Cornyn of Texas did--as a public servant, he 
was a passionate, compassionate, get-the-job-done, commonsense, 
conservative leader who wanted to see not just the promises made but 
the promises kept.
  How did I meet George Herbert Walker Bush? I will tell you how I met 
him. He was Vice President of the United States of America. He was on 
Air Force One. He was Vice President under Reagan, who controlled Air 
Force One. We were riding from St. Augustine, FL, to Atlanta, GA, to do 
a fundraiser for me when I was running for Governor of Georgia. I knew 
him by reputation and by name and obviously by being in my party, but I 
didn't know him as a person.

  He said: Why don't you fly down to St. Augustine and meet me there, 
and we will fly to Atlanta for a fundraiser that night? Bring your 
family. Let's have some fun and get you elected Governor of Georgia.
  We had a ball. That was not hard. Winning the governorship was a 
little bit more difficult, but it was a lot easier to try when the Vice 
President of the United States came out and put his name on the line 
for me. I really didn't understand how he could risk his career doing 
that until I realized nobody cared who I was anyway, but he cared who I 
was because I was a potential candidate for Governor, I was a 
Republican, I was somebody he liked and admired, and I was somebody he 
wanted to help and work with.
  So my family and I piled onto Air Force One, flew into Atlanta, 
Dobbins Air Force Base, and went to the Waverly Hotel. We raised three-
quarters of a million dollars at that fundraiser. It was over in the 
flash of an eye, but I can still smell the room, indelibly remember the 
lights that were on, the banners we had, and the speeches made that 
night because he was an overpoweringly impressive guy. When he stood 
there and made a speech and Lee Greenwood followed him with how great 
it was to be an American, you knew you were among royalty--a special 
person.
  He wanted me to work for him in his Presidential campaign. I said: 
Mr. Vice President, I would be more than happy to do that. And I did. I 
didn't run it. I was not the top dog by any stretch. Paul Coverdell, 
former U.S. Senator, was his campaign manager. Fred Cooper, his 
financier, was the one who raised the money. They did a lot to help him 
get elected, but we did help him in Georgia get elected when he won 
that race.
  In 1989, when he was sworn in, he started out on a journey as 
President of the United States, after he had already been CIA Director, 
after he had already been Vice President of the United States, after he 
had already every other thing you could be--from Congressman, to head 
of the U.N. delegation, to everything in between. Now he was taking on 
the prize job of them all--the Presidency of the United States of 
America.
  I polled well as I was running for Governor. In fact, halfway through 
his first term, halfway through it, when they did a poll, I was doing 
pretty good. I wasn't winning, but I was doing pretty good, and 
everybody attributed it not to me but to the fact that the President 
came down and helped me. And he was doing really well too. In fact, if 
you will remember, George Herbert Walker Bush in 1991 had an 89-percent 
favorable rating. When he lost 2 years later, he was down in the high 
thirties. What happened? How could this guy who is so great and so 
gracious, so wonderful, who did everything, fall so fast? I have 
answered that question many times because I wanted to rationalize it 
myself.
  I watched that fall. I watched George H.W. Bush do what he thought 
was right even though what he did might be wrong for him. I want to 
explain that.
  The speech he made in New Orleans to get the nomination in 1988--he 
used a simple little line. He talked about shining cities on the hill. 
He talked about a foundation. He talked about the Points of Light 
foundation he started. He talked about helping others who didn't have 
as much as they should and he wanted them to have. He talked about 
giving a little back to your country. He gave the speech equivalency to 
John Kennedy's Peace Corps speech or great speeches made by other 
American Presidents. He was a caring man.
  He also gave a speech in which he said: ``Read my lips: No new 
taxes.'' I have never seen or heard anybody who took credit for giving 
him that statement, because that statement probably led to his most 
difficult time in his reelection campaign. But at the time he made it--
he made it because George Bush knew he might have to do that. He wasn't 
going to continue to run for President without saying: Look, I don't 
want to raise your taxes, but it is something we think might happen. 
And it did happen, and it cost him the election. He did what was right 
for the country, although it might not have been right for George H.W. 
Bush. He was that kind of guy. He put the test on what is best for the 
people, what is best for the country.
  If you listen to or read many of the stories of the Iraq war when we 
first sent troops in, George Bush was the first one to do that. I 
remember riding home in my car from my office in Atlanta when the news 
broke. The President was about to do a press conference. When I turned 
the radio on, he was making the announcement about sending troops into 
Iraq from Kuwait and going after Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons 
of mass destruction.

[[Page S7273]]

  We still have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan today. We are fighting 
the ultimate war between good and evil, of terrorism versus the 
American way of peace and prosperity. That is a war that was engaged by 
George Bush not because he liked war but because he loved peace; not 
because he wanted to fight but because he wanted to demonstrate through 
strength that we can negotiate a settlement through diplomacy far 
easier and with less damage.
  George Herbert Walker Bush did everything he thought was the right 
thing to do for the right reasons. Even if his final decision was not 
good for him politically, he still did it if it was right for the 
American people. You can ask no more of a politician. You can ask 
anything you want to, but you can't ask anything more of them than to 
do what is right regardless of the consequences. I love Mark Twain's 
quote: When you are confronted with a difficult decision, do what is 
right--you will surprise a few, but you will amaze the rest.
  George Herbert Walker Bush was an amazing man, someone whose life 
will indelibly be in my heart and my memory, for all the things he did 
for me, my children, and my grandchildren, and all of the things he has 
done for you and all of us as Americans.
  To his son, 43--he is a great chip off the old block. He is probably 
as good as his dad, but nobody will ever be nicer than his dad.
  George Herbert Walker Bush, George W. Bush, the entire Bush family, 
Barbara Bush--I send my sympathy and my support for you in this time of 
trial. I thank you for the sacrifice you have made for our country and 
for your family.
  I pledge to you that I will try to always be as close as I can--I 
will never make it, but I will do as much as I can to be as good or try 
to be as good as George H.W. Bush was.
  I hope that when I die and the papers report on that--if there is 
any--they will be as kind to me as they have been to George Bush. What 
they have done with George Bush is told the truth--not talk about any 
failures, where there might have been a few; they talked about his 
victories, his passions, and they talked about his love. Most of all, 
they talked about a great country, the United States of America. It is 
great today and will always be because of men like George Herbert 
Walker Bush.
  May God bless his soul. I thank him for the service he brought to our 
great country.
  I yield back.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________