Political Quotes

“Madam President, I woke up this morning in Kansas with some sad news. One of our State legislators, Bob Bethell, a 13-year member of the Kansas House of Representatives, died in a car wreck late last night. The Kansas legislature has had a difficult session and finally concluded, I believe after 100 days of the legislative session, this year's work in Topeka, and one of our central Kansas legislators on the drive home from Topeka back to Alden, KS, was involved in a one- car accident, a fatality. I rise tonight to pay respect to my friend and former colleague Bob Bethell, and express my respect and gratitude for his public service, and my care and concern, in fact my love, for his wife Lorene and his family and friends. Bob Bethell was, I suppose you could call him, a great politician in the sense that his constituents loved and admired him. They respected him. They cared about him. He could be called a great politician because in Topeka he was someone whose voice was listened to. But nothing about Bob Bethell was a politician. Bob Bethell was a person who was a Baptist minister in his small hometown. He loved God greatly. God was the focus of his life. He loved the people God created in his community and across Kansas. In fact, Bob became the administrator of a nursing home because of his care for senior citizens. It was that extension of his care for seniors that caused him to want to serve in the legislature.…”