Rich Neal: “Joe Moakley's sense of humor was infectious for all of us; and one can sense, I think, the affection that we all feel…”

“Joe Moakley's sense of humor was infectious for all of us; and one can sense, I think, the affection that we all feel for him today. In Massachusetts, people think that one is supposed to be good at politics. We take it very seriously. In the instance of Joe Moakley, he is heir to the great legacy of the great McCormack and the great O'Neill. There are two parts of this business in Congress. There is the outside business, and there is the inside business. Joe Moakley was good at both of them. The problem in this institution, like most institutions of legislative life today across America, is that the people that are good at the outside part of it can never become good at the inside part of it because they profess a disdain for the institutions of which they serve, thereby never buying into consensus, never having the chance to do the great governing that has to take place in legislative life. Joe Moakley understood both parts of legislative life.”