Kendrick Meek: “Mr. Ryan, I don't give the President total credit for all of this. He couldn't do it by himself. You have to have a…”

“Mr. Ryan, I don't give the President total credit for all of this. He couldn't do it by himself. You have to have a rubber stamp Congress to give you full power, full power to be able to take the country down the track it has gone down. And the bottom line is that a Republican majority, from the leadership on down to the newly elected member of the Republican conference, has to take credit for giving the President the kind of power that he has right now. We are fighting wars abroad for ``democracy,'' when here at home we don't celebrate that very democracy that so many people speak of. We have individuals that are on their third and fourth deployment. I am on the Armed Services Committee, so I get the reports. I get the letters from my constituents saying my husband, my wife, my mother, my dad, my niece, my uncle, my next-door neighbor is on his way back to Iraq again. Because we went alone. We didn't go with a true coalition. So I think it would be hard, if I was a part of the Republican majority, to try to muster up some talking points for the floor right now; to be able to say, well, okay, some of this stuff is not believable, so let's try to attack some members of the Democratic caucus. Let's try to muster up and embellish a ``record'' on possibly being weak on terrorism or being weak on national security. That's where the Republican majority is now. Mr. Speaker, they are gasping for political air right now.…”