Madam President, there is not a person in this Chamber, I guarantee you, who does not go home at the end of the week and hear from people of their State--Democrats, Republicans, or unaffiliated voters--``what in the world are you guys doing back there? What's with all the political games being played? Why can't people act in a bipartisan way?'' I think it is important to say that we are talking about a bunch of nominations that actually have broad bipartisan support. Most of them passed out of committee by voice vote--certainly on a bipartisan basis. As the Senator from Virginia was saying, there is instance after instance where there has been delay, delay, delay, only to see somebody pass 97 to 0 or 98 to 0. That is not about partisanship or about Republican versus Democrat. To me, that is about Washington being completely out of touch with the real world. The real world doesn't act this way. They don't use rules to make excuses for not getting their work done. The real world doesn't say we are frightened to debate these issues. The real world doesn't take people who are qualified for their jobs and prepared to serve this country at an enormously difficult time in our history and say: Let's put it off until next week or the week after that or the week after that. Nobody here is saying we should not have a vote. Nobody here is saying we should not have a debate. We are saying that the American people deserve better than that. By the way, people may not know this.…
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