John Buechner: “Thank you for yielding, Mr. President, and fellow former Members. It is good to be here back in the well. It has been a…”

“Thank you for yielding, Mr. President, and fellow former Members. It is good to be here back in the well. It has been a long time. Let me take this off, because it is bad for the camera, if you remember that. I am trying to make this brief, but I have to tell you, taking a trip with Dennis Hertel and encapsulating it in a few minutes is a pretty tough task, because Dennis loves to talk to people. We went to Zimbabwe. The U.S. Information Agency sent us there ostensibly to talk about the Presidential elections in United States. But once we got there, they said you know, this is a one-party state, and they always say that the U.S. political system is the same, because there is not a nickel's worth of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. We probably disagree about that, but our goal was to sharply define the differences between the two parties. So in the political game, we always try to talk about our colleagues and that we agree on this and disagree on that and agree to disagree. But Dennis and I went at it hammer and tongs, including the national broadcast that we had. We had their top anchorman interview us, or moderate the debate at the U.S. Information Agency's offices, went throughout the country, and Dennis and I tried to as sharply define the differences between the two political Presidential campaigns and the candidates as possible. We really had a great time, probably maybe leaning to the extremes on issues to define the differences.”