Political Quotes

“I understand fully the situation of my friend from Indiana. As my colleague, Barry Goldwater--and we both served with him--used to say: In your heart you know we could have a better bill. But we have a time problem. We have a circumstance where the House had, frankly, thumbed its nose at us last time. We passed unanimously a bill which was much more significant than this bill, led by our majority leader and by my friend from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry. They put together a real robust, significant bill. This is a mere shadow of that bill in my view. But I end up almost the same place as my friend from Indiana, my chairman does. That is, you play the hand you are dealt. The House doesn't give a darn about this bill. Frankly, they are threatening if we add any amendments to just ditch it. So once again we are yielding to the lowest common denominator. The fact is, they have a whip hand right now. The fact is, I want the President to be able to have a bill when he goes to the G-8 because I believe he is committed to trying to get the rest of the world to do more than they are doing. He wants to be able, to use a phrase he likes to use, lay his cards on the table. He wants to be able to ante up and say: This is what I am ready to do. Now, what are you all going to do? I am willing to help him do that, even though this is not--this is not--the best bill. The best bill was the Kerry-Frist bill. That was the best bill we had, and we passed it.”