Joe Lieberman: “I must say as I look back to it, the mental image I have of it is being waist deep in muck and fighting our way through…”

“I must say as I look back to it, the mental image I have of it is being waist deep in muck and fighting our way through it. It was a stunning, mind-altering, ultimately embarrassing experience, to see what has happened to our great democracy and the extent to which, at a time when we question the public's trust in government, we have created a system that amounts to evasion of law clearly by lawmakers, by all of us in the lawmaking class, by those who are running for office. And why do I say that? What became clear in those hearings, we have laws, we have laws that limit the amount of money that individuals can give to campaigns--$2,000 per individual. We have laws that limit the amount that a political action committee can give--$10,000 in the whole cycle--to a given campaign. We have laws that prohibit corporations and unions from contributing to political campaigns. It could not be clearer. And then there is created this so-called soft money loophole through which is driven not a Mack truck, a whole division, a whole army which has obliterated the limits.”