Bob Dole died on Sunday at the age of 98. His irony, wit and generosity, often used it against Democrats, Republicans, and often himself.

Give any friend a story

As a subscriber, you have 10 gifts to send every month. Anyone can read what you share.

In 1976, during a vice presidential debate with Walter Mondale, Senator Bob Dole threw out his acrimonious words.

"If we add up the number of casualties in the Democratic wars of this century," he said, "there are approximately 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit."

It did not end well. Even under the attack of some Republicans, Mr. Doll denied using the term "Democratic War" and then carried out damage control. A spokesperson said his view is that blaming the Democrats for those wars is as unfair as blaming the Watergate incident on President Gerald Ford.

The only thing that stands out in this episode is that Mr. Dole seems to realize that his typical satire is too much.

But he never stopped using it—against Democrats, Republicans, and often himself. After his death on Sunday at the age of 98, here are samples of his harsh language, including his attacks on supply-side economics and his vicious letters to former White House officials.

In the first presidential election in 1980, Mr. Dole joined the opposition against President Jimmy Carter.

"I used to call Carter a fried chicken McGovern," Mr. Dole said, referring to former Democratic candidate George McGovern. "I took this back because I started to respect McGovern."

Just like Mr. McGovern’s 1972 general election campaign, Mr. Doll’s 1980 primary campaign was defeated and burned. He won only 607 votes in New Hampshire.

The next day, he "sleeps like a baby," Mr. Dole said afterwards. "I wake up and cry once every two hours."

If 1980 was a bad year for him, it was also a great year for his party: Ronald Reagan won the presidency, and Republicans regained the Senate. But Mr. Dole is not satisfied with the specific Republicans who do this. He believes that some of them have risen in the anti-democratic wave, rather than relying on their own merits.

"If we knew that we would win control of the Senate," he said, "we would choose a better candidate."

In 1982, when members of the Senate Finance Committee worked late on a bill that would abolish billions of tax credits, Mr. Doll announced that lobbyists and lawyers “may be wearing Gucci tonight, but they will be barefoot in the morning. "

At the beginning of the Democratic primaries in 1984, Mr. Dole commented on the defeat of Senator Ernest Hollins' presidential campaign, and he will certainly not forget the relevance to his own campaign.

"The early campaign shows that Fritz Hollins has the best sense of humor," he said. "With 1% of the vote, he will need it."

Four years later, Mr. Dole again failed to run for the Republican nomination. Being accused of lacking a "vision", he said: "We thought about setting up a monthly vision club for the media. They would say,'That's the wrong vision,' and I would say,'It's okay, I have one more.'"

Mr. Doll reached the pinnacle of his career after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, making him the leader of the majority party in the Senate. The victory was led by Representative Newt Gingrich (Newt Gingrich), who will become Speaker of the House of Representatives. But Mr. Dole is not a fan.

"You heard that Gingrich employees have these five filing cabinets, four of which are larger and one smaller," he told the New York Times Magazine in 1995. 1 is "Newt's idea". No. 2, "Newt's Ideas". No. 3, No. 4, "Newt's Ideas". The small one is'Newt's Good Ideas. '"

Later that year, during the government shutdown, Mr. Dole and Mr. Gingrich announced that they supported the payment of salaries to federal workers who were on leave due to the government shutdown.

A reporter asked, isn’t it ridiculous to pay workers to stay at home instead of letting them work?

Mr. Dole-his home state of Kansas benefited from the money paid by the federal government to farmers who were left fallow for environmental reasons-replied: "It's like a farm plan."

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Arizona Senator John McCain likes to tell the story of Senate Republicans having dinner with President Bill Clinton. Someone asked whether Mr. Clinton had read the murder mystery written by a Republican senator. The president replied yes, and pointed out that “the one who was murdered was the Democratic senator.”

"Yes," Mr. Dole said. "It has a happy ending."

In 1996, Mr. Dole ran for president again.

When Pat Buchanan, his Republican nominee rival, accused him of misrepresenting Mr. Buchanan’s record, the Orlando Sentinel reported, “Doll grumbled that he was only reporting that he was reading in Buchanan’s syndicate column. He just thinks they are accurate all the time."

Mr. Dole won the nomination. (He subsequently lost to Clinton by 159 votes to 379.) His running partner was former football player Jack Kemp, who had worked in the House of Representatives for 18 years, and Dole had laughed at him before.

"There was a football player who forgot his helmet and started talking about supply-side theory," Mr. Dole said in an undated comment reported by the Tampa Bay Times.

This is not the first time Mr. Doll has expressed his contempt for supply-side economics. This is the gospel of Reaganism, that tax cuts and reduced supervision will strengthen the economy and make up for lost tax revenue.

"A bus full of suppliers rushed down the cliff and all the people in the car were killed," he once said. "This is good news. The bad news is that there are three slots."

It's not that he supports tax increases.

"I remember being on the floor one day and I said,'Now, gentlemen, let me tax your memories,'" he said in a presidential debate with Mr. Clinton and named the Massachusetts Democratic senator. Edward Kennedy. "Kennedy jumped up and said,'Why didn't we think of this before?'"

Because he has given up his seat in the Senate to run for president, Mr. Dole has no job to go back after his defeat.

When Viagra was launched in 1998, he unexpectedly agreed to appear in the ad. He knew that talking about erectile dysfunction was "a bit awkward," he said in the ad, "but it is so important to millions of men and their partners."

Mr. Dole accepted this association, including in the 2002 "Jay Leno's Tonight Show". After Mr. Reynolds mentioned that research showed that Viagra may cause blindness in rare cases, Mr. Dole appeared in the audience's laughter.

"This is a lot of rubbish, Jay," he said. "I hate to see this kind of misinformation being spread. I know a little Viagra, and Bob Dole knows a little Viagra, and my vision is perfect. It's 20/20 now.

"And," he said, pointing to Mr. Renault's band leader, "you should know better, Jay Renault."

Mr. Dole is a frequent guest on late night shows. In 1998, he appeared on the "Late Show" with David Letterman, which included reflections on the length of his career in the Senate: 35 and a half years.

Of course, he added, "Senator Thurmond has been there-well, let's see, he came in with Chester Arthur."

When Mr. Letterman asked if he had still been to the Senate, Mr. Dole replied: “I don’t go up often because I can’t vote anymore and everyone else voted wrong.”

According to the memoirs of former Senator Ben Nelson, Mr. Dole has no hesitation in criticizing the institution in which he spent 35 years. "If you have nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come to the Senate," he once said. "You will get the same feeling, and you don't need to pay."

Like many old guards of the Republican Party, Mr. Dole is increasingly critical of the direction of the party—but still supports Donald J. Trump's presidency in 2016.

He told Fox News in 2013 that the Republican National Committee should post a slogan "Say'closed for maintenance' until New Year's Day next year and spend time discussing ideas and positive agendas," he told Fox News in 2013. , He added: "Reagan will not succeed. Of course Nixon could not do it because he had an idea."

The criticism is ironic because Mr. Doll once reprimanded a former White House press secretary who wrote a critical book on the George W. Bush administration.

He wrote in a fierce letter to former official Scott McClellan in 2008: "If you have a disagreement with your boss or colleagues, there are tragic creatures like you in every government, and they have no guts. Speak up or quit." "When the money starts to roll in, you should donate it to a worthy cause, such as'bite my hand'."

But if there is no self-awareness, Mr. Doll is nothing.

"I should have chosen cervical spondylosis," he once said, recalling his comments on the "Democratic War" in 1976. "And I did it—my own."