Mike Thompson: “I respond to my friend from West Virginia by saying, I was simply going to address the issue very briefly and ask for…”

“I respond to my friend from West Virginia by saying, I was simply going to address the issue very briefly and ask for the yeas and nays, frankly, on the second-degree amendment. I might add, I think the Senator is correct in the way he described it, but we had three basic concerns. One had to do with the Senate confirmation. The other one had to do with the fact that it put this person in a position of being a strategy maker, a statutory strategy maker, when we already have a national strategy. I have no objection to reporting to Congress periodically, but being in on the front end of that, I think that horse has already left the barn.”