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Mark Shields Comments on Dave Obey's Retirement
Monday, May 10, 2010
MARK SHIELDS
on the significance of Dave Obey's Retirement:
Significance is that David Obey
was almost unique among political figures in
this town -- 41 years. You never saw him on the
-- on the cable talk shows. He was never on the
Washington, D.C., social circuit. He was
grumpy. He was hard-working. He was smarter. He
was an amazingly effective legislator. And he
was truly remarkable, in my judgment, and
unlike anybody else who came to this town, he
absolutely said what he meant and he meant what
he said. And he said the same thing to whoever
he was talking to. And he got in fights with
presidents of his own party and leaders of his
own party.
But he said to me, he said,
You learn early on in this town that our
society is wired, and it's wired to the
advantage of those who are privileged. And the
one thing public policy can do is give a break
to people who aren't privileged and don't have
that advantage. And I think he spent his whole
career doing it. And he will be missed because
he was truly one of a kind.
He wrote the
stimulus package, and he said, "It's the
unpopular things you do that you're most proud
of." And he's proud of what he
wrote.
--PBS Newshour, 5.7.2010
Last Updated (2010-05-10 10:04:09)