Douglas Alexander: “insofar as the Senator from Arizona's comments are concerned, he said we gave 168 a fair trial and hanged 4 without a…”

“insofar as the Senator from Arizona's comments are concerned, he said we gave 168 a fair trial and hanged 4 without a trial. He might have also said we had never done that before this year. That is the point. Let me step back from this and try to put it in a little different framework. I am new to the Senate. I came here in January for the first time even though I worked here before, 35 years ago, for Senator Howard Baker. A lot of people ask me, knowing I was a Governor for a while: What do you think of it? How do you like the U.S. Senate? I suspect the reason they ask that is that some former Governors who have come here have not liked it. It is a very different sort of job. But this has been a great privilege for me. It is hard for me to think of a thing that has not been good about the last 10 or 11 months. The Senator from Louisiana is here. One of the good things is she and I have worked together on issues that have to do with the environment and energy. So the opportunity to speak, the people with whom I work, the issues I deal with, all those things make serving in the Senate a great privilege. The only real disappointment I have had is this issue of judges, of the treatment the Democratic side has given to President Bush's appointment of judges. I have been puzzled by that.…”