Richard K. Armey: “let me say that when I picked up my paper last Monday and read the news of Joe Moakley's illness, it made me extremely…”

“let me say that when I picked up my paper last Monday and read the news of Joe Moakley's illness, it made me extremely sad; and I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for calling to my attention this opportunity we have as a body to appreciate one of our own. Joe Moakley is a pretty good partisan, and that is fine. It is his institutional role to stick up for people who have a shared point of view of his own, and he has done that and he has done it well. But he has never in all the time I have known him done that in any manner that was ungentlemanly or inconsiderate. On a more personal basis, when we have those moments in our lives when we can get beyond our institutional roles, he is a friend. I can remember as a young guy in the minority, probably a little bit out of line, messing with something that was not in a committee on which I served and, therefore, considered by many to be perhaps none of my business, having to trek up to the Committee on Rules with the second-ranking Democrat on the Committee on Rules who showed me patience, tolerance, encouragement, consideration, and a helping hand in the committee for me to get an amendment that was important to me to the floor so he could cheerfully vote against it. That was a pretty decent thing, quite frankly. So I welcome this opportunity. And I should say, by the way again on a more personal note, we should remember that Joe Moakley is from south Boston.…”