{"id":4294,"date":"2013-12-23T03:03:30","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T03:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=4294"},"modified":"2020-03-20T15:22:39","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T15:22:39","slug":"sen-inhofe-learns-his-foes-are-human-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4294","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Inhofe learns his foes are human, too"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>It turns out that Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has learned something about his Senate colleagues, particularly those with whom he has been fighting for many years over politics and policy.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re human beings, family men and women, individuals with big hearts that are full of compassion and love.<\/p>\n<p>Inhofe sat down with David Gregory on &#8220;Meet the Press&#8221; and revealed something that on the surface doesn&#8217;t seem like much of a story. Then again, maybe it is, given the climate in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/12\/22\/jim-inhofe-democrats_n_4489794.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037\">http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2013\/12\/22\/jim-inhofe-democrats_n_4489794.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Inhofe&#8217;s son, Perry, was killed recently in a plane crash. The senator and his family have been grief-stricken over their loss. Inhofe revealed to Gregory that senators from the other side, Democrats, reached out to him in ways that seemed to surprise him.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure why it would surprise the senator. They all have families as well. They&#8217;re human beings, with human feelings and emotions.<\/p>\n<p>Inhofe said, &#8220;I probably shouldn&#8217;t say this, but I seem to have gotten more &#8212; well at least as many, maybe more &#8212; communications from some of my Democrat friends.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I do not know how to process that remark. Inhofe isn&#8217;t suggesting Democrats are more compassionate than Republicans. However, for him to single out his Democratic colleagues in that manner strikes me as, well, just a tad unusual.<\/p>\n<p>Inhofe spoke of his battles with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. &#8220;Harry and I &#8230; disagree on all this stuff, this political stuff. But we were both married the same year, in 1959. And we&#8217;ve both had some illnesses. So yeah, I would say that when something like this happens, you get closer together. The differences are still there. &#8230; But your attitude changes,&#8221; said Inhofe.<\/p>\n<p>As the Huffington Post reported, &#8220;In the wake of his personal tragedy, Inhofe said, &#8216;all of a sudden the old barriers that were there &#8212; the old differences, those things that keep us apart &#8212; just disappear. It&#8217;s not just a recognition that I know how much more important this is, but they do, too. And they look out. And they realize that you&#8217;ve lost someone. And that brings us closer together.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Huffington Post describes Inhofe as one of the Senate&#8217;s more partisan members. It calls him an &#8220;archconservative&#8221; who has battled tooth and nail with Democrats continually over the years.<\/p>\n<p>I watched the interview this morning. I saw a man in great pain talking about his feelings in the wake of his son&#8217;s death. I also think I saw a glimmer of gratitude for the love that flowed his way from across the aisle.<\/p>\n<p>These kinds of stories remind us that we&#8217;re all imbued with the same essence. It&#8217;s called humanity.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It turns out that Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has learned something about his Senate colleagues, particularly those with whom he has been fighting for many years over politics and policy. They&#8217;re human beings, family men and women, individuals with big hearts that are full of compassion and love. Inhofe sat down with David Gregory on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=4294\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sen. Inhofe learns his foes are human, too<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2067,2405,4202,4218],"class_list":["post-4294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-harry-reid","tag-james-inhofe","tag-senate-democrats","tag-senate-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41784,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4294\/revisions\/41784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}