On the recordDecember 13, 2012
I rise today with a difficult task: to honor a great Senator and a great friend, Senator Jeff Bingaman. This is difficult for two reasons. First, Senator Bingaman is not one to call attention to himself, and, second, he does so as briefly as possible. On both counts--let me just say now--I am going to fall short. Jeff is that rare combination of character--brilliant and humble. For Jeff, it is about the work, not about his own ego, not about a monument to himself. For three decades in the U.S. Senate, he has been making a difference, for the American people and for our home State of New Mexico. Public service is a noble profession--when it isn't swamped by money, when it isn't held hostage to hyperpartisanship. Jeff is the best example I know of the nobility of politics. The origin of the word ``noble'' is ``nobilis''--well-known--from the latin ``noscere'' to come to know. Jeff, who is a scholar, probably knows that. I had to look it up. But, knowing, making sense of the world, using that knowledge to make the world a better place, that is what public service is supposed to do, and that is what Jeff Bingaman does. By Washington standards, Jeff is a man of few words. And when he comes to this floor to speak, we listen. If I am at my desk in my office, I will turn up the television, I will stop what I am doing, because I know that he will say something insightful, something worth knowing, something worth thinking about.…
