Political Quotes

“I thank the ranking member for yielding to me. I have heard from people today who voted ``yes'' on Mattis and now they are ``no;'' or they voted ``no'' on Mattis and now they are a ``yes.'' I guess that makes me a model of consistency because I am a ``yes'' and a ``yes.'' Mr. Speaker, we should vote ``yes'' to give this waiver because, as Mr. Hoyer has just said, the security needs are pressing upon us. We can't take weeks and weeks to get this person installed. So we need to act quickly and we need to have a waiver rather than starting all over again in this process. The other thing is Mr. Austin has been out of the military for almost 5 years. Under the law, there is a 7-year cooling off period. Five years, in my mind, is almost as good as 7 years. I mean, what is magic about 7 years? Is 6 years and 10 months not good enough, but 7 years and 1 month is good enough? There is a little arbitrariness involved here when choosing 7 years in the first place. I believe that 5 years--almost 5 years is sufficient for Mr. Austin to have cooled off. We had a roundtable today in committee. I thank the chairman for having that roundtable. We heard from Mr. Austin. He very eloquently stated, yeah, he could stand up to people who were in the military. He can tell them what is good for the civilian control of our country. I trust him. He is the right man for the job. Our security needs are too pressing to keep dilly-dallying on this.…”