Political Quotes

“I appreciate the time. You know, you and I, Madam Speaker, are freshmen in this House. And I've a learned a few things about coming down to the floor from watching my colleagues, about how to make a good impression. You know, everybody's back in their offices watching the proceedings on TV, or folks back in the district watching it on TV. And I see our colleagues come, and they'll take the podium down to the very lowest level so that when they walk up to the podium they'll be able to drag it all the way up to the top and look big and strong and powerful. You know, in the 18 months that you and I have served here, Madam Speaker, we've gotten a lot of advice about how to look good. We've gotten a lot of advice about how to tell the good story, how to spin the good tale. And as I listened to my friend from Virginia make his presentation earlier, I thought, you know what? He and I are looking at exactly the same set of facts and we are drawing exactly the opposite set of conclusions. And that makes it so hard to legislate here, Madam Speaker, because you and I, as part of this freshman class, we don't care two hoots about what looks good. What we care about is what is good. We don't care about trying to make people believe it's the truth, we care about actually finding the truth, and that's been the challenge up here in the 18 months that you and I have had a voting card. I have beside me, Madam Speaker, a chart that has been down on this floor a number of times.…”