Rob Bishop: “it is still an honor to stand in this body and speak to those Members of the House who are assembled. Historians and…”

“it is still an honor to stand in this body and speak to those Members of the House who are assembled. Historians and politicians, political scientists, play parlor games, one of which is to rank the Presidents from best to worst. In that group almost always Washington, Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are put as the top three; usually Lincoln is listed as number one. They are able to do that because of the 20/20 hindsight of history, because of the dogged tenacity which prohibited him from taking a shattered country that was mired in what some people have called the ``19th century Vietnam'' and extracting themselves from the war even though he would have received critical acclaim from liberals at that time. That same tenacity that we respect today was the element of criticism that was intense and unfair to him while he lived. The New York riot that took place in 1863, lasting 4 days, killing 105 people, when even the New York Times put three Gatling guns on the roof and in their windows to protect them, was blamed on him.”