Gohmert honors Breitbart’s life and work in emotional floor speech

“He figured out a way to deal with these issues and to address what was sucking the nutrients and life from this host country. It’s really a cancer,” Gohmert added. “He figured out how to shine sunlight inside offices of what was happening, and gave a good dose of chemotherapy to the cancer.”

{mosads}Gohmert also drew an analogy between Breitbart and John Quincy Adams, saying that Adams’s early effort to argue for the abolishment of slavery inspired Abraham Lincoln, who succeeded.

“John Quincy Adams did not bring an end to slavery as he had hoped. But he profoundly affected that young, skinny, less-than-handsome-looking guy named Abraham Lincoln,” Gohmert said.

“Andrew Breitbart is gone,” he added. “But I can’t help but think his devotion to truth, to preserving liberty, will have inspired so many who will pick up that banner and potentially, as was the case with John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lincoln, do far more than Adams himself could have done, and in this day, in the years to come, do more than Andrew could have done by himself.

“We wish we could have kept him longer, but thank you for this marvelous gift,” Gohmert said as he teared up.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) also spoke, and like Gohmert, called Breitbart a friend who influenced him to carry around an acorn. To King, that symbolized Breitbart’s report on ACORN, which showed ACORN representatives engaged in activities that some say demonstrated purposeful voter fraud.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for the influence of Andrew Breitbart,” King said. “In fact, we might not even know about the threat to the underpinnings of our Constitution … if it hadn’t been for Andrew Breitbart.”