Page 27 - bon-dia-aruba-20211206

A27
u.s. news Dialuna 6 December 2021

Senate leader, presidential candidate Bob Dole dies at 98

(AP) — Bob Dole, who over- mark of war. Charging a German
came disabling war wounds to position in northern Italy in 1945,
become a sharp-tongued Senate Dole was hit by a shell fragment that
leader from Kansas, a Republican crushed two vertebrae and paralyzed
presidential candidate and then a his arms and legs. The young Army
symbol and celebrant of his dwin- platoon leader spent three years re-
dling generation of World War II covering in a hospital and never re-
veterans, has died. He was 98. gained use of his right hand.

His wife, Elizabeth Dole, said in an To avoid embarrassing those trying
announcement posted on social me- to shake his right hand, Dole always
dia that he died early Sunday morn- clutched a pen in it and reached out
ing in his sleep. with his left.

Dole announced in February 2021 Dole could be merciless with his ri-
that he’d been diagnosed with stage vals, whether Democrat or Republi-
4 lung cancer. During his 36-year can. When George H.W. Bush defeat-
career on Capitol Hill, Dole became ed him in the 1988 New Hampshire
one of the most influential legislators Republican primary, Dole snapped:
and party leaders in the Senate, com- “Stop lying about my record.” If that
bining a talent for compromise with a pales next to the scorching insults in
caustic wit, which he often turned on today’s political arena, it was shock-
himself but didn’t hesitate to turn on ing at the time.
others, too.
But when Bush died in December
He shaped tax policy, foreign policy, 2018, old rivalries were forgotten as
farm and nutrition programs and Dole appeared before Bush’s casket
rights for the disabled, enshrining in the Capitol Rotunda. As an aide
protections against discrimination in lifted him from his wheelchair, an ail- and served as either majority or mi- tributions to the nation, a Congres-
employment, education and public ing and sorrowful Dole slowly stead- nority leader, depending on which sional Gold Medal. That came a de-
services in the Americans with Dis- ied himself and saluted his one-time party was in charge, until he resigned cade after he received the Presidential
abilities Act. nemesis with his left hand, his chin in 1996 to devote himself to pursuit Medal of Freedom.
quivering. of the presidency.
Today’s accessible government offic- Congress honored Dole again in
es and national parks, sidewalk ramps In a vice presidential debate two de- That campaign, Dole’s last, was 2019 by promoting him from Army
and the sign-language interpreters at cades earlier with Walter Mondale, fraught with problems from the start. captain to colonel, in recognition of
official local events are just some of Dole had famously and audaciously He ran out of money in the spring, the military service that earned him
the more visible hallmarks of his leg- branded all of America’s wars that and Democratic ads painted the GOP two Purple Hearts.
acy and that of the fellow lawmakers century “Democrat wars.” Mondale candidate and the party’s divisive
he rounded up for that sweeping civil shot back that Dole had just “richly House speaker, Gingrich, with the Robert Joseph Dole was born July
rights legislation 30 years ago. earned his reputation as a hatchet same brush: as Republicans out to 22, 1923, in Russell, a western Kan-
man.” eliminate Medicare. Clinton won by sas farming and oil community. He
Dole devoted his later years to the a large margin. was the eldest of four children. His
cause of wounded veterans, their fall- Dole at first denied saying what he father ran a cream and egg business
en comrades at Arlington National had just said on that very public stage, He also faced questions about his age and managed a grain elevator, and his
Cemetery and remembrance of the then backed down, and eventually ac- because he was running for president mother sold sewing machines and
fading generation of World War II knowledged he’d gone too far. “I was at age 73 — well before Biden was vacuum cleaners to help support the
vets. supposed to go for the jugular,” he elected weeks before turning 78 in family during the Depression. Dole
said, “and I did — my own.” 2020. attended the University of Kansas
Thousands of old soldiers massed on for two years before enlisting in the
the National Mall in 2004 for what For all of his bare-knuckle ways, he Relegated to private life, Dole be- Army in 1943.
Dole, speaking at the dedication of was a deep believer in the Senate as came an elder statesman who helped
the World War II Memorial there, an institution and commanded re- Clinton get a chemical-weapons trea- Dole met Phyllis Holden, a therapist
called “our final reunion.” He’d been spect and even affection from many ty passed. He also tended his wife’s at a military hospital, as he was recov-
a driving force in its creation. Democrats. Just days after Dole an- political ambitions. Elizabeth Dole ering from his war wounds in 1948.
nounced his dire cancer diagnosis, ran unsuccessfully for the Republi- They were married and had a daugh-
Long gone from Kansas, Dole made President Joe Biden visited him at his can presidential nomination in 2000, ter, Robin. The couple would divorce
his life in the capital, at the center of home to wish him well. The White then served a term as senator from in 1972.
power and then in its shadow upon House said the two were close friends North Carolina.
his retirement, living all the while at from their days in the Senate. Dole began his political career while
the storied Watergate complex. When In 2016, Dole initially backed former a student at Washburn University,
he left politics and joined a law firm Dole won a seat in Congress in 1960, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the GOP winning a seat in the Kansas House
staffed by prominent Democrats, he representing a western Kansas House presidential nomination. He later of Representatives.
joked that he brought his dog to work district. He moved up to the Senate warmed to Donald Trump and even-
so he would have another Republican eight years later when Republican in- tually endorsed him. He met his second wife, Elizabeth
to talk to. cumbent Frank Carlson retired. Dole, while she was working for the
But six weeks after the 2020 election, Nixon White House. She also served
He tried three times to become presi- There, he antagonized his Senate with Trump still refusing to concede on the Federal Trade Commission
dent. The last was in 1996, when he colleagues with fiercely partisan and and promoting unfounded claims of and as transportation secretary and
won the Republican nomination only sarcastic rhetoric, delivered at the be- voter fraud, Dole told The Kansas labor secretary while Dole was in the
to see President Bill Clinton reelect- hest of President Richard Nixon. The City Star, “The election is over.” Senate. They married in 1975.
ed. He sought his party’s presidential Kansan was rewarded for his loyalty
nomination in 1980 and 1988 and with the chairmanship of the Repub- He said: “It’s a pretty bitter pill for Dole published a memoir about his
was the 1976 GOP vice presidential lican National Committee in 1971, Trump, but it’s a fact he lost.” wartime experiences and recovery,
candidate on the losing ticket with before Nixon’s presidency collapsed “One Soldier’s Story,” in 2005. The
President Gerald Ford. in the Watergate scandal. In September 2017, Congress voted Dole Institute of Politics on the Uni-
to award Dole its highest expression versity of Kansas keeps an archive of
Through all of that he carried the Dole became Senate leader in 1985 of appreciation for distinguished con- World War II veterans from Kansas.