Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are now going to proceed to a vote on the Merkley amendment. As I indicated, the amendment expresses the support of this body for the transition goals of the President, including the handover to Afghan security forces of primary responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan by mid-2013, the completion of the security transition process by the end of 2014--and of course that has to do with the completion and transition. That is not necessarily by any means a withdrawal of all troops but it is the intent that all combat forces be withdrawn by the end of 2014. I emphasize it is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. After the disposition of the Merkley amendment, we then intend to move to the Whitehouse amendment. The Whitehouse amendment has been cleared by the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction. However, there is a desire to debate and have a rollcall on that amendment. We are asking Senator Whitehouse to be prepared immediately after this vote to call up formally and debate his amendment and any opponent or opponents of the amendment to be prepared to debate it at that time. So it is our intent--and I ask unanimous consent--that immediately following the vote on the pending Merkley amendment, we then move to the Whitehouse amendment, and following the disposition of the Whitehouse amendment we then move to the Coburn amendment No.…”