On the recordFebruary 15, 2002
with reference to the word ``Lilliputians'', that seems to be the prevailing way that officials in the Bush Administration view members of Congress. Several members of the Bush Cabinet have publicly used that term when speaking about the inconvenience of having to work with the people's representatives and the laws and rules that Congress writes. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke to the National Defense University on January 31, 2002. Referring to Congressional earmarks in the defense appropriation bills, he said: ``The Congress has, for whatever reason, decided that they want to put literally thousands of earmarks on the legislation--that you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't do this, you can't do that. Well, your flexibility is just-- it's like Gulliver with a whole bunch of Lilliputian threads over them: no one thread keeps Gulliver down, but in the aggregate he can't get up.''
Source
govinfo.gov
