Political Quotes

“I assume that the Ambassador invited me because they get foreign aid from the United States. Nobody mentioned it. But that dinner would be permissible under the Wellstone-Levin proposals, and I assure you those situations can be much more heavy-handed than dinner with a lobbyist. Go to any embassy in town--and I have never been to an embassy where a really opulent dinner, the finest wines, the finest everything was not served and that is permitted under the Levin and Wellstone proposals. So, Mr. President, I could go on. The Senator from Kentucky covered the whole gamut yesterday of how this does, indeed, trivialize the Senate. If you want to abolish all gifts, I could not care less. But this does nothing for the Senate. A lot of people in America will find themselves rather contemptuous of this feeble effort. But more people in the press and probably across the country will say, ``I wonder what those guys have been into that they have to devise a bill like this.'' I hate to say this because it sounds a little self-serving, but my secretary keeps the Rules Committee and the Ethics Committee on auto dial now. And I suspect that most Senators here could make the same statement. Everybody is afraid to breathe. And I can only imagine what it would be like if either of these amendments become law.”