Political Quotes

“briefly on another issue, just because each day we are bombarded with so much bad news, disappointing news, news that makes you want to put the newspaper down or turn off the television, I want to share with my colleagues a piece of good news, heartwarming news, news that is reflective of the compassion that we as an American people have, that we have the opportunity to express at times, and this particular incident, I believe, represents it quite concretely. It is about a very special 7-year-old boy from Afghanistan. His name is Mohammad Omar. He suffers from a congenital anomaly, a birth defect that is not all that rare but we didn't know how to treat until the beginning of the 1940s, 1950s, when the research was initially done. Before that, it had a 100-percent mortality rate. As you will tell from the outcome of the story, surgery has changed that. His defect is called tetralogy of Fallot. Tetralogy means there are four things--It doesn't matter what they are--but it is a hole between two chambers of the heart; a ventricular septal defect it is called. The second is an outflow tract obstruction from the right ventricle to the lungs, and therefore the obstruction there means the blood does not get up through the lungs. There is an overriding VSD and then there is some right ventricular hypertrophy--the right side of the heart is big and very muscular.”