Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, when I was a boy, my father used to point out to me that there were certain moments, certain events, that not only defined, perhaps, a community or a generation but that left an indelible mark on a person. He referenced me to go speak to my grandparents about where they were when the news came that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I can remember my Grandfather Lucas describing the exact field, the exact row that he was picking cotton in in December of 1941 when one of the neighbors stopped and asked, ``Have you heard?'' My father could tell you exactly the moment, while walking down the street in Elk City, Oklahoma, when he walked up on a crowd that was staring in the window of a store that was selling televisions. Everyone's mouth was down. Everyone was aghast at the news from Dallas. In many ways, the experience of 2 minutes after 9 a.m. on April 19, 1995, has had the same mark and the same effect on not only me and on my colleagues in this delegation but on our communities in the country. Like my grandfather in his remembering the moment that he found out about Pearl Harbor and like my father in the moment he understood that President Kennedy had been assassinated, I will never forget sitting with the Oklahoma delegation, waiting to give testimony in a BRAC hearing in Dallas, when a reporter tapped me on the shoulder, a reporter I had known for some time. He said: ``We have a report that there has been an explosion at the Federal building in Oklahoma City.…”