He says he's got other things to do, but he doesn't get up. He keeps talking. He takes a swipe at the No Child Left Behind law -- "hogwash!" -- then takes on school vouchers: "At the time of Brown against the Board of Education" -- the decision that outlawed school segregation -- "we had 16 private schools in South Carolina; now we've got 372," he says. "And that's the whole thing of vouchers -- to finance the private schools."
He rips into George W. Bush again, scoffing at the president's plan to bring democracy to the Arab world.
"You can't force-feed democracy," he says. "God knows in this country, a hundred years into it, we had a bitter, four-year, violent war, the Civil War. Yeah, we said, 'All men are created equal' in the Declaration of Independence, but it wasn't enshrined in the Constitution until Brown against the Board of Education. Come on!"
He pauses for air, then continues: "But the Lord has been with us and we pulled together and we got a great country and we got more freedom than anybody else. But to walk into a place where religion is stronger than freedom -- they're not looking for freedom, they're looking for religion. Five times a day, they're down on their knees, man. You can't find that in America. You can't get 'em to go on their knees on Sunday -- "
At this point, his press secretary, Ilene Zeldin, interrupts.
"You about done?" she asks.
"Yeah," he says.
After 38 years, he is about done, and it's safe to say the Senate won't see anyone quite like him anytime soon.
