Jackie Speier: “I, too, rise to pay my respect and to honor Representative Cleaver. I am one of those many Members of the House who each…”

“I, too, rise to pay my respect and to honor Representative Cleaver. I am one of those many Members of the House who each week waits for that letter from Congressman Cleaver. In each of these letters, he tells a life lesson, typically one to inspire us to be more hopeful, to be more willing to look at the issue from someone else's perspective, to be more compassionate, to be more loving. So I, too, share in his commitment to making this place a more responsive environment for all, and I thank Mr. Cleaver for his great leadership as the chair of the CBC over the last year. Mr. Speaker, I now would like to turn to my prepared remarks for this morning. I would like to read you some song lyrics that Air Force Technical Sergeant Jennifer Smith found on her government computer at Shaw Air Force Base. The lyrics of the song are called the ``The S&M Man,'' and they go like this: Who can take a machete, whack off all her limbs, Throw her in the ocean, and watch her try to swim? The S&M Man. Jennifer Smith reported this song and other sexually explicit documents to her superiors in the Air Force. ``The S&M Man'' is offensive, it's hostile, but to her male colleagues and superiors, the song is just tradition, a tradition that is alive and well, celebrated in song, patches, coins, offensive pictures, behavior, and the tacit approval of commanding officers.…”