“People say to me now, and I wonder now - whatever gave you the courage as a 29-year-old kid to announce to the United States Senate against a man who had an 82% favorable rating in a year when we knew it was going to be tough. What gave you the courage to run? Or, some thought, what made you so foolhardy. The answer, and you girls should know this, was your father - your father. I didn’t know him when I announced for the Senate. But I honest-to-God believed that I could - maybe could - go help him end this war. I honest-to-God believed that… What people don’t realize, had your father not been there - had your father not been in the Senate, so much more blood, so much more treasure would have been wasted. The war never would have ended when it did. It would have never ended how it did. Your father gave courage to people who didn’t have the courage to speak up, to finally stand up. Your father stood there and took all of that beating. Your father, who was characterized by these right-wing guys as a coward, and unwilling to fight. Your father was a genuine hero. The irony used to make me so angry - so angry - that your father would never speak up and talk about his heroism. Your father had more courage, physical courage, in his little finger - than 95% of those guys who continued to fight, to fight in a war we shouldn’t have fought in the first place. But because he took such a miserable beating, he actually, even though he didn’t win that election, he won the end of the war. It would have never ended.”
— Joe Biden, giving a eulogy for George McGovern (via jackimurphy)
(Source: aeryndunham)
