Political Quotes

“Mr. President, during one of the last votes, a Member came to me and said: I have not been able to follow this debate. What exactly is the McCain-Barrasso amendment? With all of the to-and-fro--having votes on different subjects, then going back to the START treaty, then going back to a vote on don't ask, don't tell, then finally a vote on the McCain-Barrasso amendment--I thought it would be good to recapitulate a little bit on what exactly the McCain-Barrasso amendment is and why it is important. What the amendment does is it removes language that relates to missile defense from the preamble. This treaty was supposed to be about offensive strategic weapons, not about missile defense. In fact, we were told by an administration spokesman that it wouldn't relate to missile defense, but sure enough, there the words are. Why are they there? They are there because the Russians insisted they be there. Why did they insist they be there? Because for decades the Russians have been fixated on U.S. missile defense, trying to find ways to reduce the effect of our missile defense on Russian strategic capabilities. They tried it at Reykjavik with President Reagan. He said no. They tried it again in the first START treaty. They tried it again in the Moscow Treaty of 2002. And they have tried it again here. The difference between this treaty and the previous times is that the United States always pushed back and said: No, we are going to rely on missile defense. It is the moral thing to do.…”