Max Cleland: “it has been my honor, and a privilege, to know our distinguished friend and colleague, Paul Coverdell, for a long time.…”

“it has been my honor, and a privilege, to know our distinguished friend and colleague, Paul Coverdell, for a long time. I have had, overnight, the opportunity to think about his life and about his death. When a man dies, especially a friend, we are inevitably struck by the frailty of life, the speed of death, and the very painful void that is left behind. With the passing of our friend and colleague, Paul Coverdell, we are also struck by the promise of a truly brilliant future left unfulfilled. Alphonse de Lamartine once said: Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems less. Today, that is exactly how I feel. The world seems less today. Paul and I worked together for many years. We were sworn into the Georgia State Senate on the same day, in January of 1971. In Georgia, we sit not as partisans, across the aisle, but we sit by numbers of our State senate districts. Fate had it that Senator Paul Coverdell sat right in front of me. So even though he was of one party and I another, we shared space on the floor of the State senate. We worked together in harmony for 4 years. It was a joyous time. It was a marvelous time to get to know this young talent. When I came to the U.S. Senate, Paul had preceded me. Paul stood on the floor of the Senate here with my parents watching from the balcony as I was sworn in.”