Dole recalled for service in war, Congress
WASHINGTON — Bob Dole was honored Friday at Washington National Cathedral and the World War II monument he helped create as leaders from both parties saluted the longtime Kansas senator’s ability to practice bare-knuckle politics without compromising his civility.
Displaying a bipartisanship rare in modern government, politicians in office and out came together to pay homage to Dole’s hard-scrabble rise from wounded war veteran to Senate stalwart to three-time, unsuccessful presidential candidate.
“He could be partisan, and that was fine,” said President Joe Biden. “Americans have been partisan since Jefferson and Hamilton squared off in George Washington’s Cabinet. But like them, Bob Dole was a patriot.”
Joining Biden at the funeral service were members of Congress, Cabinet officials, three Republican former vice presidents and Bill Clinton, who beat Dole to win reelection as president in 1996.
“There’s something that connects that past and present, war time and peace, then and now,” said Biden, who touched Dole’s casket before addressing the service and mentioned their 50 years of friendship. “The courage, the grit, the goodness and the grace of 2nd Lt. Bob Dole, who became Congressman Dole, Senator Dole, statesman, husband, father, friend, colleague and — a word that’s often overused, but not here — a genuine hero.”
Dole, who died Sunday at age 98, was severely wounded during World War II, served nearly 36 years in Congress and was GOP Senate leader for more than a decade. Besides his
sharp, often sarcastic tongue, among Dole’s best-known attributes were his pragmatism — representing the sense of compromise of a bygone era.
While calling him a “giant of our time and of all time,” Biden said Dole was worried at the end of his life about American democracy being threatened by bitter political battles and had noted that infighting from both parties “grows more unacceptable day by day.”
Still, Democrats and Republicans coming together to praise Dole’s ability to put country and public service over ideology was the overriding theme.
Biden offered vivid, visceral
details during his eulogy, speaking about Dole being born a child of the Dust Bowl, volunteering as a young man for military service and how he came back to “painful” years recovering from his wounds.
“God, what courage Bob Dole had,” the president said.
Former Republican Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts said Dole used humor as a tool, delivering deadpan punchlines which helped let “the air out of the partisan balloons.” Dole’s daughter, Robin, read a letter her father wrote to his staff in which he said “I believe in the future of the United States of America.”
After the funeral service,
Dole’s casket traveled to the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, which opened in 2004 and which Roberts said would not have existed with Dole spending years spearheading the legislation that erected it.
“Bob Dole understood that it was just not enough recognition that this Greatest Generation deserved,“Roberts said. “It was reflection and renewal, and it was for the Greatest Generation to inspire the next generation.”
Dole’s body is also traveling to Kansas, where weekend events include a public viewing in his hometown of Russell. He will eventually be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.