Cord Byrd: “I haven't been invited down. I am not looking for an invitation. I do not expect any invitation to change my mind. I…”

“I haven't been invited down. I am not looking for an invitation. I do not expect any invitation to change my mind. I have had the master of arm twisters ahold of my arm, Lyndon B. Johnson. He was the master arm twister. But I said no to him. When my first grandchild was born I gave to my daughter, the mother of that grandchild, a Bible. In that Bible I wrote these words: ``Teach him to say no.'' That's all I wrote, ``Teach him to say no.'' Mr. President, it doesn't make any difference if you have a vocabulary of 60,000 or 600,000 words. If you can't say no, then all these other words at some point or another in your lifetime are going to find you sadly lacking--if you can't say no. I am telling this story in my autobiography, of how I said no to Lyndon B. Johnson on more than one occasion. It was hard to do, because he put me on the Appropriations Committee when I first came here. And I felt as though I had been put through a wringer after going through a 30-minute skirmish with Lyndon Johnson but still saying, ``No. No, Mr. President.'' So, I haven't been invited down to the White House. But I can still say no and would be glad to. So, if the President wants to hear me say no, all he has to do is call me on this. He doesn't have to invite me down to the White House. I'll bet the Senator from South Carolina won't get any invitation either.”