Lynn C. Woolsey: “I only wish that the current leaders on the other side of the aisle had used their final days in the majority to…”

“I only wish that the current leaders on the other side of the aisle had used their final days in the majority to actually exercise leadership and do something constructive for the American people. Instead we are here for the lamest of all possible lame duck sessions. Just look at what we have done today. With all due respect to my Resources Committee colleague Mr. Simpson, the Southern Idaho Bureau of Reclamation Repayment Act of 2006 really isn't one of the most pressing matters facing our Nation. And what about the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail Designation Act? My friends, we are in the middle of a war, a failed war, which a majority of the American people no longer want any part of; a war which, by the admission of the President's own choice for Secretary of Defense, we are not winning. More than 2,900 of our best and brightest American troops are dead because of this failed policy. At least 46,000 have been wounded, severely wounded. And it is not as if they have sacrificed for a noble cause. Iraq, which was supposed to spontaneously blossom into a democracy the minute our troops arrived, has instead been plunged into a civil war as a direct result of the American occupation.”