Alan Simpson: “it is my great pleasure to comment about my friend Bob Dole. We have heard all of the facts and the extraordinary…”

“it is my great pleasure to comment about my friend Bob Dole. We have heard all of the facts and the extraordinary history of the man's life and his life in the Senate, and it indeed is extraordinary. We all have known that. He is the very best--the very, very best. I will be saying much about this man in the next months, for this is a leader, a real leader, not just in the title he held but way down inside, and that is a gift. That is the ability to lead, to engender trust and loyalty and the admiration--even grudging sometimes--of your toughest adversaries, and he has had that and it will serve him well. One of the great and singular honors in my life was to serve as his assistant for 10 years. I was his first lieutenant. He was the captain. We had a pretty good platoon, a good company, too, and a good battalion. It was one wonderful run. I must say that some joy of it was lost, was sometimes when we took our work too seriously--but we never took ourselves too seriously. When you have a couple of gentlemen with a rather spirited sense of humor, it does spark up and brighten the day. I love those types. I learned much from this man. I learned not to judge, to try to make things work, to have ultimate patience. That is what I really have not learned yet. It is out there though. He gave me some good tips. In those times, I found this man to be true, honest, and so natural, a very remarkable gentleman.”