Former Utah Republican Senator
Bob Bennett passed away on May 4. As he slowly succumbed in a Washington, D.C. hospital,
this happened:
Former GOP senator Bob Bennett lay partially paralyzed in his bed on the fourth floor of the George Washington University Hospital. He was dying.
Not 48 hours had passed since a stroke had complicated his yearlong fight against pancreatic cancer. The cancer had begun to spread again, necessitating further chemotherapy. The stroke had dealt a further blow that threatened to finish him off.
Between the hectic helter-skelter of nurses, doctors and well wishes from a long-cultivated community of friends and former aides, Bennett faced a quiet moment with his son Jim and his wife Joyce.
It was not a moment for self-pity.
Instead, with a slight slurring in his words, Bennett drew them close to express a dying wish: “Are there any Muslims in the hospital?” he asked.
“I’d love to go up to every single one of them to thank them for being in this country, and apologize to them on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump,” Bennett told his wife and son, both of whom relayed this story to The Daily Beast. (our emphasis)
Bennett, a very conservative Senator, certainly was on the opposite side of most issues from progressives. Even so, he lost his seat in a tea party surge to the despicable alter ego to "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee. But this episode demonstrates to us that, unlike the majority of his fellow Republicans, he had a functioning moral compass at least as far as Muslim Americans were concerned. Good on him, and good to know.
