[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 22981-22982]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO SENATORS

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, while the Senator from New Mexico is on 
the floor, I want to, one, thank him for his characteristically lucid 
and honorable put-the-national-interest first statement and also to say 
that I gather, this afternoon, colleagues will be coming to the floor 
to pay tribute to some who are not running again, as Senator Domenici 
is not running. I have to go to Connecticut to join my family for a 
celebration of Rosh Hashanah right after the vote, so I wish to take 
this moment to thank Senator Domenici for his extraordinary service and 
to say to him what an honor and a pleasure it has been. Sometimes it is 
an honor to work with some people but not a pleasure; sometimes it is a 
pleasure and not an honor. With you, it has been both.
  You just spoke to our responsibility to our country in this economic 
crisis, and you spoke from your inner characteristically American core 
of optimism, that we have the best financial system in the world and we 
have every reason to be optimistic, but we are really in a crisis. To 
me, that is the kind of service you have given our country. And you are 
a characteristic American story because your family does not go back to 
the Mayflower, as we used to say in my family, like yours. Your family 
came from Italy to this country, and they gave you a love for this 
country, a confidence that if you worked hard and used the abilities 
God gave you, there was no limit to how far you could go.
  Like so many others, you have served your country with extraordinary 
honor and effect across a wide range of subject areas. I think 
particularly of the great work you have done in trying to regularize 
and make orderly and efficient and responsible our budget process; from 
that kind of nuts-and-bolts dollars-and-cents to the passionate 
advocacy you have given for equal treatment in our insurance system for 
those who need assistance from our medical system for mental illness, 
to treat mental illness exactly as physical illness.
  So, Senator Domenici, it has been an honor to serve with you. If I 
may get a little ethnic, which you and I usually do, I would say, in 
leaving the Senate this year, you are following in the footsteps of 
another great Italian-American hero whom I grew up admiring in a 
different field of endeavor, Rocky Marciano. Remember, Rocky retired 
undefeated, and you are too.
  Mr. DOMENICI. It has always been a pleasure working with you and 
being with you, and I wish you the very best. I know you are heavily 
involved in another kind of campaign and you are doing something very 
difficult, and I know you must go through difficult times even though 
you are enthusiastic about what you are doing. That must be difficult 
because it is, in fact, very different, and you choose these situations 
and you handle them well.
  I compliment you, wish you the very best, and hope after the 
Presidential election, whatever happens, you come back and have a very 
good life in the Senate.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I thank my friend.
  I offer thanks and best wishes to other colleagues who are leaving--
Senators Allard, Hagel, and Craig.
  I particularly wish to say a word about a colleague of the occupant 
of the chair, Senator Warner of Virginia. Senator Webb was kind enough 
to ask me to join him in a tribute to John Warner, and I wish to say a 
few words about him because our lives have intersected so much in 
service here.
  I begin by quoting another great Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, who, 
when he arrived in Paris as U.S. Minister to France--what we would now 
call an Ambassador--presented himself to the French Minister of Foreign 
Affairs.

[[Page 22982]]

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs asked Jefferson, because he was 
replacing Benjamin Franklin:

       Do you replace Monsieur Franklin?

  Jefferson replied:

       I succeed him. No one can replace him.

  I would say of another great Virginian, John Warner, that no one can 
replace John Warner. He is a Senator's Senator, a patriot, a true 
servant of our country and of his beloved State, the Commonwealth of 
Virginia, all of which will be forever grateful for his lifetime of 
service and dedication.
  Senator Warner began his service to our country at the age of 17. Let 
me say, generally, without revealing his exact age, that would be more 
than 60 years ago. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II. In 
1950, at the outbreak of the Korean war, he interrupted his studies of 
law to return to Active military duty. Similar to so many who served 
our country in that period--and I meet them all the time in 
Connecticut, particularly World War II veterans, the ones, for 
instance, whose families will call and say: My dad or my grandfather 
thinks he may have been entitled to a medal, but he never got it--they 
rushed back after the war to return to their families and to their 
work. We check the records. In almost every case, in fact, these 
veterans of World War II deserve medals. In almost every case, when we 
give them to them, as I have had the honor to do on many occasions, the 
veterans of World War II will say: I didn't want this for myself. I 
wanted it for my grandchildren. Then they almost always say: I am no 
hero, I am an ordinary American called to serve our country in a time 
of crisis.
  The truth is, these veterans and those who followed them in 
succeeding conflicts, including the distinguished occupant of the 
chair, may each think of themselves as ordinary Americans but, in fact, 
together they have protected America's security, saved our freedom. 
Those veterans of World War II defeated the threats of fascism and 
Naziism. Think about what the world would be like if our enemies in 
World War II had triumphed and think about the extraordinary period of 
progress and economic growth that followed after the successful 
conclusion of World War II.
  John Warner was part of that. His service continued. In 1969, he was 
appointed Under Secretary of the Navy. From 1972 to 1974, he served as 
Secretary of the Navy. Throughout the rest of his career, including his 
long, distinguished, and productive service on the Senate Armed 
Services Committee, John Warner has shown unwavering support for the 
men and women of the Armed Forces and, of course, in a larger sense, 
unwavering support for the security of America and the ideal of freedom 
which was the animating impulse and purpose that motivated Jefferson 
and all the other Founders to create America, a country created on an 
ideal, with a purpose, with a mission, with a destiny. John Warner has 
always understood that. The fact that he is a Virginian is part of that 
understanding.
  It has been my great honor to serve with John Warner in the Senate, 
particularlyon the Armed Services Committee, where over the years I 
have come to work with him. Senator Warner is a great gentleman, a word 
that can be used lightly but belongs with Senator Warner, a person of 
personal grace, of civility, of honor, of good humor, someone who in 
his service here has always looked for the common ground. As all of us 
know, when we make an agreement with John Warner, even on the most 
controversial circumstance, his word sticks. He keeps the agreement, no 
matter how difficult the political crosscurrent may be. He has had an 
extraordinary record of productive service to America and to Virginia.
  One of the things I cherish is that in 1991, after Saddam Hussein's 
invasion of Kuwait, I was asked to join with Senator Warner in January 
of 1991 to cosponsor the resolution which authorized the Commander in 
Chief to take military action to push Saddam Hussein and Iraqi forces 
out of Kuwait which they, of course, did successfully, heroically, and 
with great effect on the stability and future of the Middle East. It 
turned out that in 2003, when it came time again for the Senate to 
decide whether we were prepared to authorize yet another Commander in 
Chief to take military action to overthrow Saddam Hussein--and I don't 
need to talk about the causes for which we argued for that case--
Senator Warner asked me if I would join him again as a cosponsor. It 
was a great honor for me to do that, and it passed overwhelmingly with 
a bipartisan vote.
  In a very special way, notwithstanding this kind of work and work we 
did together, for instance, to establish the Joint Forces Command, 
located in Norfolk, VA, to make real the promise of joint war fighting 
that was inherent to the Goldwater-Nichols legislation but was not 
quite realized, I worked with Senator Warner and Senator Coats, a 
former colleague from Indiana, to accomplish that.
  Fresh in my mind and expressive of the range of John Warner's 
interest and of his commitment to the greater public good was the fact 
that at the beginning of this session of Congress, he sought to become 
the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Climate Change of the 
Environment Committee, which I was privileged to about to be chair of. 
We talked about the problem. John didn't, as this challenge to mankind 
has taken shape, rush to the front of it. He was skeptical. He 
listened. He read. He concluded the planet is warming, that it 
represents a profound threat to the future of the American people, 
people all around the globe, and that it represents a threat to our 
national security, which has been the animating, driving impulse of his 
public service. We talked and decided to join together. I call it the 
Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act; he calls it the Lieberman-Warner 
Climate Security Act, which is a measure of the relationship we have 
had and his graciousness. Without his cosponsorship, we would not have 
gotten it out of subcommittee, first time ever. We wouldn't have gotten 
it out of the Environment Committee, first time ever reported favorably 
on this important challenge to the Senate floor. We wouldn't have been 
able to achieve the support of 54 Members of the Senate, the first time 
a majority of Members of the Senate said we have to do something about 
global warming, including our colleagues, Senator McCain and Senator 
Obama, which means the next President will be a proactive leader and 
partner with Congress in the effort to do something about climate 
change. It wouldn't have happened without the support of John Warner, a 
final extraordinary act of leadership by this great Senator.
  He has a lot of great years left in him. I hope we can find a way for 
him to continue to be part of the work all of us have to do: One, to 
keep our country secure--and there is no one with more expertise and a 
more profound commitment to that--and, two, to get America to assume 
its proper leadership role in the global effort to curb global warming.
  He is a dear friend, a great man. It has been a wonderful honor to 
serve with him. I pray he and his wife and all his family, beloved 
children and grandchildren, will be blessed by God with many more good 
years together.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time of the majority has 
expired.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional moment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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