Byron Dorgan: “But Senator Byrd came to the floor, and he stood up, and he said this: I have served here long enough to see pygmyies…”

“But Senator Byrd came to the floor, and he stood up, and he said this: I have served here long enough to see pygmyies strut like Colossus. And he said, very like the fly in Aesop's fable, sitting on an axle of a chariot, ``My, what dust I do raise.'' And it occurred to me he had just told someone what they had done was unbelievably foolish. I am not sure they understood it. But he wrapped it in such elegant language, as he always did. In addition to serving at a time early on in his career when things were different, when there was perhaps less anger and less partisanship and committee chairmen and ranking members got together and decided what we needed to do for the country and did it together and came to the floor together, he was also, on the floor of the Senate, someone who knew the rules. He studied the rules because he understood that knowing the rules to this Chamber and how this process works was also important to be successful here. Aside from that, he was a skillful legislator--very skillful. I watched him walk out of this Chamber from that door and very often stop as a bunch of Senate pages--high school kids who serve in the Senate-- would gather around and then he would spend 15, 20 minutes telling them a story about the Senate, about the history of this great place.”