Neil Abercrombie: “the difficulty here, as the gentleman has outlined, is that we are now engaged in what can only be described as…”

“the difficulty here, as the gentleman has outlined, is that we are now engaged in what can only be described as political hate speech. This is not an unusual circumstance, I am sorry to say, in this day and age. I have had occasion to pick up a centennial edition, I believe is the designation, by the original publishers of George Orwell's ``1984.'' A new introduction by Thomas Pinchon. My colleague may recall in ``1984,'' in Orwell's conception of what was taking place, there is a whole new conception of what speech would consist of and what the language would be. Ignorance is strength, slavery is freedom, hatred is love. Everything becomes its own contradiction, its exact opposite. The confusion is there. Let us read exactly what the advertisement said. We are now conducting political policy by virtue of advertising when issues of war and peace are concerned. Let me quote it directly: ``Some are now attacking the President for attacking the terrorists.'' Who? Some. Who? I suppose it is possible, if you look far enough and long enough and deep enough, you can find somebody, somewhere, not necessarily even within the boundaries of the United States, if we are talking about some, who would be attacking the President for attacking the terrorists. But I do not think that those of us who are taking this issue seriously and trying to engage in a dialogue on this issue can find anyone of a serious bent in the House, any of our colleagues, to come down and name anyone.”