Mike Thompson: “Yes. Indeed. I do not think any of us want to spend all this time and effort on something that basically we think ought…”

“Yes. Indeed. I do not think any of us want to spend all this time and effort on something that basically we think ought to happen in terms of reorganization of an important part of Government for naught and go before the American people and say we have failed because we insist on the status quo with regard to managing this thing but not the status quo with regard to the President's national security authority. I can't read the President's mind. We learned that our CIA Director declared war to his people some time ago, and he is taking a lot of criticism and abuse, quite frankly, from some of our people who are our allies--one, in particular, I think in a particularly shameless fashion, in order to get reelected in Germany, has said some things which I think is going to haunt the relationship between the United States and Germany for a while. In the midst of all that--albeit he was talking about the Iraq issue and not this one--I think it put the President in a difficult position when we are spending all this time debating. Again, this is the one area where we do not like status quo.”