Inhofe on Son's Death: Family 'Not Whole Anymore'

Jim Inhofe today opened up about the death of his son in a plane crash last month, saying that the tragedy has altered his perspective. "You don’t change in terms of your positions, in terms of what you believe in, but you change in terms of your understanding of individuals," Inhofe told Meet the Press, as per Politico. Dr. Perry Inhofe was piloting a twin-engine plane in Oklahoma last month when it crashed. "You think about those things that Perry did that nobody else does, and that’s the thing that will be missed," says the Oklahoma Republican, who says that even with a large family, "it's not whole anymore, and so that's still probably always going to be a difficult thing to face up to, and it's a reality."

Inhofe adds this nugget: "I probably shouldn't say this, but I seem to have gotten more, or at least as many and maybe more, communications from some of my Democrat friends. And I'm a pretty partisan Republican. Something like this happens, and all of the sudden all the barriers, the differences that keep us apart, disappear." He also talked about specifics of the crash, as per the Tulsa World: "One engine was down but the last communication was garbled so we don't know if he shut it down or if it shut down. He knew he was going down and he avoided any of the areas with houses, with people. ... That's Perry." (More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)