Political Quotes

“Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am very disappointed in this request. Senator McCain has been asking that the leader take up the Defense authorization bill for weeks. This evening he tried very hard to get agreement from the Senator from Michigan, the chairman of the committee, and others to try to work out a way that we could take up this bill right after we come back or at some point after we come back after the election. After he leaves the Chamber, and after virtually everybody is gone, at 1:40 in the morning the majority leader asks unanimous consent to take up the bill limited to relevant amendments. Now that would be fine with me, and I am sure it is fine with Senator McCain, but everybody knows you can't get unanimous consent of your colleagues when they are all gone at 1:40 a.m. in the morning without any advanced notice that the request was going to be made. As a result--though I would be happy personally to agree to the request--we don't know what our Members would agree to and whether they would agree to limiting this to relevant amendments. To me that is the only thing that seems to be out of order, but obviously we can't agree to it because we can't hotline this at this time of the evening and get consent from our Members. What mostly bothers me is the implication, therefore, that the leader is all for taking it up and it is the Republicans who are objecting.…”