Austin Scott: “Thank you very much. It is good to be here with you and my good friend, Congressman Van Hollen, always a pleasure, and I…”

“Thank you very much. It is good to be here with you and my good friend, Congressman Van Hollen, always a pleasure, and I commend both of you on your expert comments and thought-provoking comments here today. Accountability is the issue that we just left trippingly off our tongues. Accountability. The timing is right now for accountability. ``The buck stops here,'' as Harry Truman said. ``The buck stops here.'' And the buck is stopping within 9 or 10 weeks, for we are right around the corner from true accountability. That is accountability with our customers, our clients, the people who put us here. They want some accountability. We have all just come back from our August recess. Paramount on their minds is security. The American people have lost faith with the direction in which we are headed. Every poll speaks that. I don't care if it is the Fox poll, the CNN poll, the Washington Post poll, the ABC poll, every poll that has been taken speaks clearly; 63 percent of the American people are dissatisfied with the direction this country is moving in, in Iraq, and half of the people in this country are finally getting the picture, the ability to separate the war in Iraq from the war on terror. That is very fundamental. That is a sea change. That has been a very serious part of our problem, and it has really been the Achilles' heel of this administration, of the Bush administration.…”