Henry Hyde Will Be Missed

RUSH: Henry Hyde passed away. I met Henry Hyde a number of times and once socially at the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown down in the private room. There were a bunch of us down there, Bill Bennett and Bill Kristol. It was a dinner in his honor for a couple things, the way he had always stood fast on the issue of life and the way he conducted the House managers during the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The way he presided over the impeachment hearings was masterful. He was faithful to history; he was faithful to the Constitution; he didn’t allow it to become a sideshow, but he also didn’t allow it to become derailed by other people. He took his responsibilities very seriously; he had a grand, grand sense of humor, just a tremendously gracious guy, loved an adult beverage and a cigar. He was also the leading voice of the unborn, not in a shrill way. He was articulate; he was compassionate and sincere; and he’s going to be missed.

I hope, if history is faithful to events, he will be remembered as one of the standouts of the House of Representatives. I admired him greatly. I mean the first time I met him, I was asked to emcee something in Washington. It was in the late eighties, early nineties, and I had just started this show, within a year or two, and it was some Washington hotel, I forget what it was, but I think it was an event to celebrate Ollie North for the way he had taken it to the select committee there on the Iran-Contra thing. I had a grand time that night introducing all of the speakers, and I remember saying, ‘So Ollie lied to Congress. Yay!’ (clapping) I forget the columnist’s name, but there was some liberal columnist was in there, I’m sorry to insult this guy by not remembering his name, but he wrote a piece the next day, ‘Well, what an event this was, the emcee was applauding and encouraging everybody to lie to Congress.’ Well, a bunch of pack rat Democrats who were lying about what had gone on in the first place and were standing in the way of the advance of US foreign policy and national defense against a beachhead the Soviets were trying to create down in Nicaragua.

Henry Hyde was one of the speakers, Pat Robertson was one of the speakers, a lot of people. After it was all over, Henry Hyde, and the first time I had met him, came up and said, ‘You are a good emcee.’ He was just as gracious and nice as he could be. He reminded me a lot of my paternal grandparents in terms of his dignity and his stature, his sense of humor, even temper and temperament, he was just a gentleman through and through, and he will be missed, as I say.