Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee for engaging in this brief colloquy and for specifically calling for a hearing a couple of weeks ago at which the two cochairmen of the National Defense Strategy Commission presented the findings of the Commission's report. I agree that the hearing, which was attended by, I believe, every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a remarkable hearing because the members of the Commission, represented by the two cochairs, made it clear that their report--our report--was, indeed, a bipartisan document and nonpartisan, as cochairman Admiral Roughead said. Perhaps it would be good to just dwell for a moment on how this Commission was created, and then we can talk a little bit more about the report itself because I think one of the biggest factors about the report is the credibility of the people who helped to design it. A couple of years ago, the two Armed Services Committees in the House and Senate put a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act to create a commission that would be comprised of 12 members--6 of whom to be appointed by the Senate and 6 of whom to be appointed by the House. Three each would be appointed by the chairmen and the ranking members of the two Armed Services Committees so there would be a balance of six Democrats and six Republicans--I think. I say that because, like Admiral Roughead, I am not sure of the politics of everybody who served on the Commission.…”