Bob Dole... A Nostalgic Look Back at a Great American

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Perhaps it's nostalgia week for me. But I always liked Bob Dole. Didn't always agree with him mind you, but I still wish he woulds have won the 1996 match up against himself and Bill Clinton. I always got the sense he could be trusted. Maybe that's why he didn't win.

Anyway Senator Dole is a real American who served his nation in wartime, took a bullet for liberty, and went on to serve it in public life for 50 years. Admirably, with integrity, and honor. Ah, the good old days of the Republican
party perhaps.

As I was reading an article in GQ this morning I was reminded of the candor and humor of the Kansas Senator. That, and how much respect I hel\d for the man. So, I decided to share a few quick excerpts of his comments from the article...

I ask him the question everyone seems to be asking of the GOP faithful in 2012: "Would you say your endorsement of Romney was...tepid?"

"Not tepid at all," Bob Dole says, his face tight and serious.

"Romney came to my office," Dole says, "we had a good meeting, and I'm not a Gingrich fan, so..." He famously loathed Gingrich: "He's just difficult to work with. It's either Newt's way or the highway. He's got a lot of ideas. Some of them are good; not many. So it looked to me like it would be either Romney or Newt for the nomination, but just on its own, I thought he—well, I'll say this: Romney looks like a president."

"You're self-made," I say. "You embody the American Dream."

"I've never known a lot of rich people," he says. "It's not my bag."

I ask him how he sizes up President Obama.

"He's a nice person. I have a good relationship with the White House, I just think he's totally out of step. We're moving farther to the left, and it may not be as bad as some people say, but we've got to cut spending. One of these days, we'll probably have to raise taxes. I just think his philosophy is too far to the left."

"Bill Clinton called me one day recently," he offers. "I said, 'What do you want?' He said, 'I want to see how you're doing. How's your health?' He's done that a couple times. If I did anything, I made a lot of friends. And they were Republicans, of course, and Democrats." Clinton would help Dole deal with Gingrich. "I'm not going to talk to him, you talk to him," Dole, as Senate majority leader, would say to Clinton. "No, you talk to him."

"President Obama came to visit me in the hospital. He said, 'I wish you were still in the Senate; I need your help.' I'm not certain I can help on everything. Maybe some things."

"I don't know how many people run for vice president and president and lose both," Bob Dole says, turning to his aides. "I think there's one other?"

"You're testing my history on that one, sir. It would have been..."

Dole: "Anybody?"

"Lost both vice president and president? Um..."

Dole: "Somebody said there was someone—other than me?"

"You have to go back pretty far, I just, I don't think—"

Nobody can come up with one. {Read The Whole Article Here}

Maybe it's just me, but one can't help but to get a sense of the man's character and class. Even at, and perhaps especially at 88.

Via: Memeorandum