Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am very grateful to my colleague. I was happy to wait, but I am grateful to him. I thank the Senator from Montana, my friend Senator Baucus. I am privileged to work with a lot of extraordinary staff members here in the Senate, as we all are. We often say that none of us is any better than our staff allow us to be. It is rare that I have had somebody on my team who predated my time in the U.S. Senate. I have been here--oh, this is my 28th year now. Mary Tarr, who I would like to say a few words about, is my office manager, up until today--a veteran staffer of 31 years here in the Senate. She is about to retire and looks forward to going into the grandmother business over the course of these next years, after three decades here. I think sometimes people miss or are unaware of the difference that an office manager could make in a Senate office. It is hard to quantify sometimes. But without any negative inference to the Senate itself in drawing this analogy, which is sort of a prison-and-inmates analogy, a great manager is a little bit like the character Red in the movie ``The Shawshank Redemption.'' In that movie, Red is described as the guy who can get stuff, not unlike the sergeant in ``Catch 22.'' There are these special people who know how to make things appear out of nowhere and make everything work.…”