Political Quotes

“This is outrageous, this amendment. I urge my colleagues to read this. Read this, please, what we are about to do, here. This has waivers within waivers. It is 29 pages of complex contradictory provisions, in my view, that make it virtually impossible in many instances for any kind of waivers to be applied here. Further, the amendment would also prohibit the United States from providing military assistance to many countries that are parties to the Court, including such countries as Colombia, unless the President first takes the step of waiving the provisions of that particular provision. I would say what is going to happen, if our allies respond to this prohibition by barring the sharing of information they may have, which we have a strong national security interest in having--we are sort of provoking this kind of tit for tat, back and forth. I don't believe that is the way to go. There are ways of improving this treaty. This is not the way. This is about politics and votes in here. This is not about making this a stronger agreement and doing something that would make our Nation proud. I can only imagine what would have happened if this Senate had been operating in the days after the end of World War II, when only a few of Americans supported the Marshall Plan, when it wasn't popular to do so, using taxpayer money to rebuild Japan and rebuild Europe.”