she is followed by jeff flake speaking about his retirement. after that dean heller says goodbye to his colleagues and reflects on his time in congress. sen. mccaskill: it probably won t surprise my colleagues to i don t like much the idea of a farewell speech. spent a great deal of time contemplating it. i m not a fan of the concept, but i wanted to respect the tradition, especially since i have witnessed so many senate traditions crumble over the last 12 years. i will do my best to get through this without breaking up. a traditional farewell speech in the united states senate is full of accomplishments and thanks. i will skip half of that. i am extremely proud of my body of work over 34 years of public service, but it is for others to judge, and i will not dwell on it today other than to say it is a long list and a tangible demonstration of the value of hard work. the wonderful barbara bush said never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success
i am not a big fan of the concept. i want to respect the tradition. especially, since i have witnessed so many senate traditions crumble over the last 12 years. i will do my best to get through this without breaking up. inraditional farewell speech the u.s. senate is full of accomplishments and thanks. i am going to skip half of that. i am extremely proud of my body of work over 34 years of public service. and ifor others to judge will not dwell on it today other than to say it is a long list and a tangible demonstration of the value of hard work. saidonderful barbara bush never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people. friends, andyour coworkers. even strangers you meet along the way. rather than talk about what i have done, i want to speak about my family. i have three different families i want to talk about today. my actual family. my family electrical missouri. my family here in the senate. first, my actua
this period in our young lives shaped our sense that this democracy is special, is important, is worth fighting for, and requires greater sacrifice of us than might be obvious here in the comforts of the united states. it s because of these shared experiences we urchth the understand the ways when our democracy is dysfunctional, when the world sees gridlock, especially today, especially on the continent we ve both come to know and love in africa that there are competing models for how to organize a society that are rising in their visibility and their confrontation and their competition with our own. we know democracy matters. and believe we have to fight for it. we respect each other. we listen to each other. and over the years i ve been blessed to have the chance for us to work together. at a time marked by division and partisanship, senator flake rightly recognizes that we need to get back to a point where compromise is rewarded rather than punished, when we work togethe
mrs. mccaskill: it probably won t surprise my colleagues to know that i don t like much the idea of a farewell speech. i haven t spent a great deal of time contemplating it over the years i have been here. i m not a big fan of the concept. but i want to respect the tradition, especially since i have witnessed so many senate traditions crumble over the last 12 years. so i will do my best to get through this without breaking up a traditional farewell speech in the united states senate is full of accomplishments and thanks. i m going to skip half of that. i m extremely proud of my body of work over 34 years of public service, but it is for others to judge, and i won t dwell on it today other than to say it is a long list and a tangible demonstration of the value of hard work. the wonderful barbara bush said, never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people, your family, your friends, and coworkers, and even strange
marc: good afternoon everyone. i m marc plattner, founding coeditor of the journal of democracy and co-chair of the research council of the national endowment or democracy and international forum for democratic studies. i was very pleased to welcome all of you to this afternoon s discussion, both our audience was here at the offices of the national endowment or democracy and those of you who are viewing us on c-span. the international forum for democratic studies in addition to publishing the journal of democracy and hosting the reagan fellowship program conducted research and organize conferences of meetings on a wide variety of subjects related to democracy. its recent focus has been on the impact of authoritarian influence within democracies on transnational kleptocracy on protecting the democratic information states. if you re interested in learning more about the work of the international forum, i invite you to visit our website at www.ned.org/ideas, where you will also