Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to offer some remarks about my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey. I think you can tell from his presentation today what he holds most dear, and, of course, that is his family--both Kris, his wife, and his children--and I am so happy that he is going to be able to spend more time with them. I thought I would offer some remarks about his service as well as the ways that we have worked together. Let me start with the basic assertion which Senator Toomey made reference to that he and I didn't agree on much. And I think it is probably--I am not going to speak for him, but I kind of am in this moment. I am not sure he wanted to be caught dead agreeing with me on some issues, and that is just the way it works around here. But one thing we tried to do from the opening day that he got here in January of 2011--I had been here a few years at that point--was we tried to--and I think we were successful over 12 years--have a kind of mutual respect, which is easy to articulate and harder to effectuate, and it requires both sides to give and take. And I am grateful that we were able to do that together. There are a lot of ways in the Senate, as is true in the House or any other legislative body, even when you are from the same State, to kind of poke each other on a regular basis. We refrained from that.…”