Joe Lieberman: “we have watched the steady deterioration of the vitality of our democracy under assault not from the kinds of foreign…”

“we have watched the steady deterioration of the vitality of our democracy under assault not from the kinds of foreign enemies that the Department of Defense authorization bill is aimed at protecting us against, but in some senses, an assault from ourselves. We have allowed our political system--particularly the post-Watergate reforms that were adopted to put limits on how much people could give to campaigns, to require full disclosure of those contributions--to be evaded, eroded, made a mockery of. The result is that the people of this country rightly conclude that money buys access and influence and affects our Government, and it turns millions of them off from the process. The vitality of this democracy, which is the pulsating virtue and the essence of America that generations of our soldiers have fought and died for, is under attack domestically. The question is whether we will respond, whether we will defend our democracy.”