Political Quotes

“There are a lot of things that get spun around this thing, as you know in this town. It's been, Republicans are blocking the bill. We have no capability of doing that, obviously, not from a vote-count standpoint, when the Speaker of the House has 40 votes to burn, a 40-vote advantage, and they're sitting behind closed doors cooking up a closed-door deal. They can't get enough Democrats to pass 218 votes here. I don't think today they can bring a bill to the floor and get it passed. This is about, though, the public criticism of shutting Republicans out and about this bill being negotiated in secret. Those are the two things that the President seeks to resolve tomorrow. Six hours of C- SPAN time, and then he'll say, Listen, we're doing what I promised we'd do. We're negotiating this bill out in public, and, by the way, we're doing it with Republicans, so who can complain? Well, for me, it controls the entire format. Here's the real centerpiece that I don't think anybody has articulated at this point yet. The President of the United States, as Senator Obama and as candidate for President, said to the Iranians, If you just simply unclench your fist, we will offer our hand. We will negotiate with the people that we have been at odds with since 1979, the Iranians and Ahmadinejad--with no preconditions whatsoever--and offer an open hand to the guy with the clenched fist.…”